• Project number: F 2463
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Completed Project

Description:

The project was part of the accompanying research for the funding campaign of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) "Autonomous Robots for Assistance Functions: Interactive Basic Abilities". In this campaign, eight further projects on the development of robotic functions considering cooperation with humans were funded. It was the goal of the accompanying research project to bring together the insights from those projects and to additionally generate own research results on questions of overarching relevance.

For networking between the projects, BAuA has organized inter-project meetings in which exchange on the research advances was fostered. Additionally, in the fourth and fifth workshop "Human-Robot Interaction" held in Dortmund, the focus was on the research topics of the assistance robot projects. At the end of the projects, the accompanying research consortium has published, under the direction of BAuA, an edited volume with twelve chapters showing the results of the projects. The anthology can be viewed and downloaded at the bottom of this page under "Publications".

BAuA's own research focused on the people responsible for the robots' functioning. For the operators and the (technical) personnel in charge of handling or maintenance, robots pose a challenge. Their application needs situational flexibility and consideration of the whole socio-technical system. In the project, interviews with robot operators in care contexts, among other approaches, were conducted to find out which stakeholder groups robots get in contact with, how this contact is realized and how organizational conjunctions between the groups and the robot can look like. These insights are meaningful for developing basic robotic abilities and for implementation of robotic systems, as they show interaction demands that are often forgotten.

Additionally, twelve demands for the design of service robotics were developed in a multilevel discussion format with experts. These are important to be addressed to enable a useful and humane implementation of service robotics in work systems. In an online survey of caregivers, the participants expressed how they feel about the use of service robots in caregiving contexts and which expectations and wishes they associate with the use of robots.

Overall, the project generated an overview over important aspects to consider in developing and implementing service robots, especially if they are meant to support employees in work systems.

Accompanying research on the funding program "Autonomous Robots for Assistance Functions: Interactive Basic Abilities" (ARAIG), funded by means of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Funding Code FKZ 16SV7903