Universal Design of Robots

Project description

The goal of the project is to find out how one can design and evaluate if social robots are universally designed. Robots have been studied from different perspectives: such as design, engineering, and informatics. Broadly, robots can be divided into industrial,
professional, service robots and personal service robots (3,4). Social robots are robots that people interact with using social mechanisms such as speech and gestures (5), and socially assistive robots are robots that can be used to teach or coach people in different areas, such as helping people with autism spectrum disorder understand social and emotional cues (6).

In the next couple of years, the number of robots in different areas of society will greatly increase. Oxford Economics predicts that by 2030 the number of robots in the world will reach 20 million (7). While many of these robots will be used in the industry sector, an increased number of robots is expected to be integrated into the home and healthcare settings due to the shortage of healthcare personnel (8,9) In this project, we are most interested in robots that might be used for social assistance or in the context of home and healthcare.

Social robots, containing both a physical manifestation and a digital component, differ from other kinds of ICT solutions such as web pages and mobile apps (10,11). In addition, new laws and regulations such as the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) (12) and the new Machinery Directive (MD) (13) may also have an influence on the design of robots and affect universal design. For those solutions, it is sufficient to build universally designed software with the assumption that the computer or telephone will provide the necessary assistive technology to access the software.

Some robots may be interacted with via a web page or mobile app, but social robots are designed to be interacted with via gestures, voice, or other modalities. This allows for more opportunities for creating technology that can be used by more people, but it also requires additional thought and planning to reach everyone.

What is required to make a robot universally designed? There currently is no straightforward answer to this question. One would need to consider the context and think about how people are to interact with it. Although one can turn to standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, this may be insufficient for the robot’s interactions in the real world. With uncertainty as to what guidelines to follow, there are also issues with evaluating the robot to find out if it is universally designed. It would be helpful if a roboticist and designers had a resource to consult for building a universally designed robot and have a method for evaluating if a robot is universally designed.
In addition, since many robots have sensors to sense the environment and mechanisms to move, they have their own limitations and may also benefit from universal design in the environment. Although it would be interesting to examine these benefits, that is not the goal of this project.

Aside from articles that the project partners have written on the subject (10,11), there has not been many studies that have examined this area. One design used the original universal design principles as inspiration in creating their robot (14,15), but this did not take into account any standards such as WCAG for its creation.

Our project will investigate existing universal design and accessibility guidelines to see how they can apply to robots that interact with people. We will identify gaps in the existing guidelines and find possible solutions for how these gaps can be addressed. We will also consult with different user groups to see if they have any information about how robots can be made to be more universally designed. Once we have gathered this information, we plan on creating a method to evaluate a robot for universal design. To prove that this method can be useful, we will run this evaluation on a variety of different robots to see how robust the method is and adjust to accommodate for other issues that may arise during the evaluations.

Expected outcomes

As outputs from this project, we anticipate five (5) deliverables:
D1. A report about the experiences around the use of robots and potential accessibility and universal design problems.
D2. A report detailing different guidelines and requirements for universal design that may apply to a robot and a summary of
possible concerns from people that may interact with the robots.
D3. A new method for evaluating if a robot is universally designed or not. A type of “WCAG for robots.”
D4. Universal design evaluations done for several existing robots that a user may encounter.
D5. Scientific articles detailing the research so that our work can be verified by others.
 

About the project partners

The project is a cooperation between the University of Oslo’s (UiO) Robot and Intelligent Systems (ROBIN) group, Norwegian Computing Center’s (NR) Digital Inclusion Group, and the Faculty of Health Studies at VID Specialized University research group for Service Development for Older Persons.

• ROBIN: The ROBIN group at UiO have long studied different aspects of robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems. In addition to the group’s extensive knowledge, they also have access to several kinds of common robots that we can use for the evaluation process.
• NR: The digital inclusion group at the Norwegian Computing Center has long experience of researching accessibility and universal design of ICT. Recently, NR has began working with several projects in social robotics, including ROS: robot supported language learning for children with an immigrant background and ROSA: robot supported learning for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). NR brings our knowledge and experience from previous unIKT projects.
• VID Specialized University (VID): It is a private, accredited higher education establishment. VID’s aim is to provide education and conduct research in health and social studies, pedagogy, leadership, diaconia and theology. The research group for Service Development for Older Persons focuses on how welfare technology, such as robots, can help in the healthcare of older people. VID also has an active network for recruiting participants to user activities and will assist in recruiting participants for activities.

The groups bring cross-disciplinary knowledge in experience in working with robotics, researching the universal design of ICT, and health and welfare technology. Pajalic from VID is a professor of health sciences and welfare technology, and researchers Schulz from NR and Saplacan from UiO have recently successfully defended Ph.D. theses examining human-robot Interaction (HRI) and situated abilities in the use of everyday ICTs.

References

1. Saplacan D. Situated Abilities: Understanding Everyday Use of ICTs [Internet] [Ph.D.]. [Oslo, Norway]: University of Oslo, Department of Informatics;
2020 [cited 2022 Jan 10]. Available from: https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/81852

2. Schulz T. Exploration of Moving Things in the Home [Internet] [Ph.D.]. [Oslo, Norway]: University of Oslo, Department of Informatics; 2020 Aug 31]. Available from: https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/74061

3. Thrun S. Toward a Framework for Human-robot Interaction. Hum-Comput Interact. 2004 Jun;19(1):9–24.

4. Goodrich MA, Schultz AC. Human–Robot Interaction: A Survey. HCI. 2008 Jan 25;1(3):203–75.

5. Breazeal C, Dautenhahn K, Kanda T. Social Robotics. In: Siciliano B, Khatib O, editors. Springer Handbook of Robotics [Internet]. Berlin, Germany:
Springer Verlag Berlin Heidelberg; 2016 [cited 2016 Oct 18]. p. 1935–72. Available from: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-6. Matari MJ, Scassellati B. Socially Assistive Robotics. In: Siciliano B, Khatib O, editors. Springer Handbook of Robotics [Internet]. Springer Publishing; 2016 [cited 2016 Oct 18]. p. 1973–94. Available from: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-32552-1_73

7. Lambert J, Cone E. How Robots Change the World: What Automation Really Means for Jobs and Productivity [Internet]. Oxford, United Kingdom: Economics; 2019 Jun [cited 2022 Jan 18]. Available from: https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/how-robots-change-the-world

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https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/artikler-og-publikasjoner/befolkningsframskrivingene-2018

9. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. World Population Ageing 2017 [Internet]. United Nations; 2018 Aug 6]. Report No.: ST/ESA/SER.A/408. Available from:
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/ageing/WPA2017_Report.pdf

10. Saplacan D, Herstad J, Schulz TW. Situated Abilities within Universal Design – A Theoretical Exploration. International Journal on Advances Intelligent Systems. 2020;13(34):278–91.

11. Herstad J, Schulz TW, Saplacan D. T-able: An Investigation of Habituating Moving Tables at Home. Universal Design 2021: From Special Mainstream Solutions. 2021;238–51.

12. European Commission. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council Laying down Harmonised Rules on Artificial (Artificial Intelligence Act) and Amending Certain Union Legislative Acts [Internet]. 2021/0106/COD 2021. Available from:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1623335154975&uri=CELEX%3A52021PC0206

13. European Commision. Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Machinery Products [Internet]. 2021 [cited 19]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/45508

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