New Directions: When Robots Meet People
An ongoing revolution is taking place in mobile robotics. Robots that guide blind or mentally handicapped people, clean large office buildings and department stores, or assist people in recreational activities are clearly within reach. For many of those target domains, prototypes are readily available. The author discusses a case study of a mobile tour guide robot in a branch of the Deutsches Museum. The robot's task was to guide visitors through the museum, explaining to them a subset of the museum's exhibits. The project's major challenges are grouped into two categories: navigation and human-robot interaction.