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Design impact of acceptability and dependability in assisted living robotic applications

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Abstract

This paper presents the implementation and investigation of a novel user centred method, adopted to design, develop and test a personal robot system, composed of a mobile robotic platform and a smart environment, for assisting people at home. As robots need to work closely with humans, novel interactive engineering design approaches are required to develop service robots that are adherent to end users’ needs and that can be quickly employed in daily life. Particularly, this paper presents a methodology based on the simultaneous evaluation of dependability and acceptability, thus leading to an innovative approach for metrics and benchmarks that includes not only the main technical attributes of dependability, but also the parameters of acceptability, both implemented via a user-centered design and co-creative approach. Additionally, dependability and acceptability form the basis for defining standardized methodologies to test and evaluate robotic systems in dedicated experimental infrastructures (or robotic facilities), which are conceived to facilitate engineers in their studies and assessments.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy

    Filippo Cavallo, Raffaele Limosani, Laura Fiorini & Raffaele Esposito

  2. Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Rocco Furferi, Lapo Governi & Monica Carfagni

Authors
  1. Filippo Cavallo
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  2. Raffaele Limosani
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  3. Laura Fiorini
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  4. Raffaele Esposito
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  5. Rocco Furferi
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  6. Lapo Governi
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  7. Monica Carfagni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Filippo Cavallo.

Appendix

Appendix

The following questions were used for each basic construct of the acceptability model, with answers ranked according to the Likert scale from 0 to 5:

ITU

  1. Q1

    Do you think ASTRO robot can integrate itself with your habits and your lifestyle?

  2. Q2

    Would you buy ASTRO robot, now or in the future?

PEOIU

  1. Q1

    Was the Touchscreen Interface easy to use?

  2. Q2

    Was the Microphone Interface easy to use?

  3. Q3

    Was the Smartphone Interface easy to use?

PEOSU

  1. Q1

    Was the Support in standing up service easy to perform?

  2. Q2

    Was the Object transport service easy to perform?

  3. Q3

    Was the Communication service easy to perform?

  4. Q4

    Was the Entertainment service easy to perform?

  5. Q5

    Was the Reminder service easy to perform?

  6. Q6

    Was the Environmental alert service easy to perform?

  7. Q7

    Was the Remote control for caregiver service easy to perform?

PUF

  1. Q1

    Was the Support in standing up service useful?

  2. Q2

    Was the Object transport service useful?

  3. Q3

    Was the Communication service useful?

  4. Q4

    Was the Entertainment service useful?

  5. Q5

    Was the Reminder service useful?

  6. Q6

    Was the Environmental alert service useful?

  7. Q7

    Was the Remote control for caregiver service useful?

  8. Q8

    Do you think a service robot, such as ASTRO, is useful?

SAT

Are you satisfied in:

  1. Q1

    Support in standing up service?

  2. Q2

    Object transport service?

  3. Q3

    Communication service?

  4. Q4

    Entertainment service?

  5. Q5

    Reminder service?

  6. Q6

    Environmental alert service?

  7. Q7

    Remote control for caregiver service?

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Cavallo, F., Limosani, R., Fiorini, L. et al. Design impact of acceptability and dependability in assisted living robotic applications. Int J Interact Des Manuf 12, 1167–1178 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12008-018-0467-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12008-018-0467-7

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