Long-Term Assessment of a Service Robot in a Hotel Environment

Abstract

The long term evaluation of the Sacarino robot is presented in this paper. This study aimed to improve the robot`s capabilities as a bellboy in a hotel; walking alongside the guests, providing information about the city and the hotel and providing hotel-related services. The paper establishes a three-stage assessment methodology based on the continuous measurement of a set of metrics regard- ing navigation and interaction with guests. Sacarino has been automatically collecting information in a real hotel environment for long periods of time. The acquired information has been analyzed and used to improve the robot's opera- tion in the hotel through successive re nements. Some interesting considerations and useful hints for the researchers of service robots have been extracted from the analysis of the results.