Results of Field Trials with a Mobile Service Robot for Older Adults in 16 Private Households

Abstract

In this article, we present results obtained from field trials with the Hobbit robotic platform, an assistive, social service robot aiming at enabling prolonged independent living of older adults in their own homes. Our main contribution lies within the detailed results on perceived safety, usability, and acceptance from field trials with autonomous robots in real homes of older users. In these field trials, we studied how 16 older adults (75 plus) lived with autonomously interacting service robots over multiple weeks. Robots have been employed for periods of months previously in home environments for older people, and some have been tested with manipulation abilities, but this is the first time a study has tested a robot in private homes that provided the combination of manipulation abilities, autonomous navigation, and non-scheduled interaction for an extended period of time. This article aims to explore how older adults interact with such a robot in their private homes. Our results show that all users interacted with Hobbit daily, rated most functions as well working, and reported that they believe that Hobbit will be part of future elderly care. We show that Hobbit’s adaptive behavior approach towards the user increasingly eased the interaction between the users and the robot. Our trials reveal the necessity to move into actual users’ homes, as only there, we encounter real-world challenges and demonstrate issues such as misinterpretation of actions during non-scripted human-robot interaction.