Robot Interface Design: The Giraff Telepresence Robot for Social Interaction

This paper presents the outcome of the Workshop on Robot Interface Design, which was held in Genoa (Italy) over the months of January and February 2014 and was jointly organized by Polytechnic School at the University of Genoa and the National Research Council. The aim of the workshop was to study the design of physical, functional and graphical interfaces for a telepresence assistive robot, starting from the analysis of the current features of a commercial robot called Giraff (http://www.giraff.org). The fielding of the Giraff robot has been studied (within an EU-funded AAL project: ExCITE--http://www.excite-project.eu) in three different European countries as an ICT solution to support elderly people and to enhance social interaction with relatives and caregivers. The evaluation with real end-users of the Giraff brought to light a set of user requirements and issues to be improved in the robotic platform. This workshop sought to present the aspects connected to the design (in which participants had specific expertise), and to the users perception of the robot within a domestic environment. Particular attention was paid to the design of volumes, shapes and anthropometric relationships as well as elaborations on chromatic aspects and the exploitation of different kinds of material. Some of the main results of the workshop were: a design process involving different professionals such as designers, engineers and psychologists working in close contact with a group of end-users; a set of possible modifications/extensions of the robotic platform; a set of new design concepts featuring a higher level of product emotionality.