Questions to be answered

In this interactive session we want to address questions concerning the development of service robots in everyday use, as:

• What might/should an everyday service robot look like in 1, 5, 10 years?
• Which applications should we solve?
• What are the most valuable (technical) challenges to tackle?

Description

Service robotics is at a stage where an extensive application in our everyday lives starts to become very likely. However, the question of what exactly the robotisation of public spaces will look like is still completely open, as it depends on a complex interplay of different technologies, economical and societal factors, and of course researcher interest and funding. In this workshop, we would like to invite you to share your educated guesses and help sketch a timeline for the development of robots in public spaces. The discussion will entail, but won't be limited to, the following aspects:

Decisions: What does an everyday robot look like in 1, 5, 10 years?

• Wheels vs. Legs
• Specialized vs. Universal
• Anthropomorphism vs. Functionalism
• Local Computing vs. Cloud Computing
• Teleoperation vs. Autonomy

Which applications should we solve? What are the most valuable technical challenges to tackle?

• What are the most valuable applications to target?
• What can we solve today?
• What are major hardware limitations?
• Where do we need more R&D activities?
• Where are we missing key concepts?
• Any other bottlenecks?

Organisation of the WS

The workshop will be structured as follows:

- 5' a brief introduction by the organisers

- 30' three keynotes from research and industry

- 50' Moderated Session: Towards a timeline/agenda for everyday robots: what are the pressing issues? (Talking points: see content description)

- 5' closing remarks

Intended outcome

Participants will obtain a structured overview of the current developments in public service robotics.

The main outcome is a rough timeline for (possible) future developments in that sector for the next 5-10 years.

Speakers, Panelists, etc

Moderators: Laura Fiorini, Tristan Schnell, Paul Schweidler

Invited speakers:

• Alessandra Sciutti, Istituto italiano di Tecnologia
• Francesco Ferro, CEO of PAL Robotics
• Prof. Dr. Sven Behnke, Universität Bonn (w/ reservation)

Topic Groups and/or Innovation networks involved

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Projects involved

• Rokit - Roboter Kompetenz- und Interaktions-Testcluster | www.public-robots.de
• RimA - Transferzentrum Roboter im Alltag | https://www.roboter-im-alltag.org/
• Fit4Medical Robotics | https://www.fit4medrob.it/
• DESTINI Project | https://www.abrlab.unifi.it/vp-14-destini.html

Further information

Organisers

• Paul Schweider (HFC Human-Factors-Consult GmbH), schweidler@human-factors-consult.de
• Martina Overbeck (FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik), overbeck@fzi.de
• Tristan Schnell (FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik), schnell@fzi.de
• Laura Fiorini (University of Florence), laura.fiorini@unifi.it
• Filippo Cavallo (University of Florence) filippo.cavallo@unifi.it