Expanding the Frontiers of Industrial Robots beyond Factories: Design and in the Wild Validation

Robots able to coexist and interact with humans are key elements for Society 5.0. To produce the right expectations towards robots, it will be necessary to expose the true current capabilities of robots to the general public. In this context, Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) in the wild emerges as a relevant paradigm. In this article, we affront the challenge of bringing an industrial robot (NEXTAGE Open) outside factories and laboratories to be used in a public setting. We designed a multi-modal interactive scenario that integrates state-of-the-art sensory devices, deep learning methods for perception, and a human–machine graphical interface that monitors the system and provides useful information to participants. The main objective of the presented work is to build a robust and fully autonomous robotic system able to: (1) share the same space as humans, (2) work in a public and crowded space, and (3) provide an intuitive and engaging experience for a robotic exposition. In addition, we measured the attitudes, perceptions, expectations, and emotional reactions of volunteers. Results suggest that participants considered our proposed scenario as enjoyable, safe, interesting, and clear. Those points are also the main concerns of participants about sharing workspaces of daily environments with robots. However, we can point out some limitations with a biased population mainly composed of Japanese and males. In future work, we will improve our scenario with non-functional features or emotional expressions from the robot.