=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3191/paper17
|storemode=property
|title=Review of Service Robots’ Deployment and Adoption in Integrated Urban Environments
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3191/paper17.pdf
|volume=Vol-3191
|authors=Boris Robev,Ioannis Patias
}}
==Review of Service Robots’ Deployment and Adoption in Integrated Urban Environments==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3191/paper17.pdf
Review of Service Robots’ Deployment and
Adoption in Integrated Urban Environments
Boris Robev 1 and Ioannis Patias 1
1
Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski”,
James Bouchier blvd., Sofia, 1164, Bulgaria
Abstract
In our days there are a lot of challenges related to robots. We see more
and more services to be provided by automated intelligent systems. Service
robots nowadays, have a wide distribution across various service-oriented
domains in integrated urban environments (IUE), and are defined and
classified by international standards. They force a closer cooperation and
integration between various technologies and artificial intelligence from
one side, and business models for services provision and advanced user
interfaces from another. The aim of this paper is to present a short review of
the applied standards, the used classification of the service robots by their
different types of usage, and of the challenges in front of service providers
by providing services in IUE-Labin the frame of MIRACLe project, IT
technologies and robot designers. Based on the provided definitions and
classifications, then the different aspect affecting the adoption of service
robots are discussed. The conclusion is that a continuous and stronger
cooperation between the involved stakeholders is necessary in order to
achieve higher quality, and trustworthiness of the service robots.
Keywords
Service robots, automated intelligent systems, automation
1. Introduction
With the development of information technologies, technical and scientific
research continue to interact more closely with business and services providers,
towards automation of and aiming customer satisfaction service delivery. Such
continuous change in the requirements shifts the focus from pure engineering to
the fields of the development and integration with modern automated intelligent
systems, including artificial intelligence (AI), sensor development, mobile ser-
vices and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Information Systems & Grid Technologies: Fifteenth International Conference ISGT’2022, May 27–28, 2022, Sofia, Bulgaria
EMAIL: robev@uni-sofia.bg (B. Robev); patias@fmi.uni-sofia.bg (I. Patias)
ORCID: 0000-0002-2705-3941 (B. Robev); 0000-0003-1355-7433 (I. Patias)
© 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
Such interaction and integration between engineering, technology, and ma-
chine learning, related to service delivery to end customers, is service robotics
[4,16].
Following the processes automation and optimization, service robots as-
signed tasks become more accurate and effective when performing repetitive
tasks, performed in the past by humans. Examples for such activities are assem-
bly parts, handling, and transporting items, performing continuous recurring
jobs etc. The past decade service robots’ developments indicated that service
robots are constantly increasing their capabilities to process and deliver more
service-oriented tasks and outcomes in more broad domains like medicine, nav-
igation and guidance, human health care, front office operations. These services,
in terms of providing them to the consumers in IUE in general, and in the frame
of MIRACle project (https://miraclebg.com) IUE-Lab as concrete use cases,
could be defined into three functionally independent groups: Intelligent Home
Environment (IHE), Intelligent Public Environment (IPE) and Intelligent Per-
sonal Assistant (IPA).
However, deliverables, provided to service recipients and associated with
more intuition, evaluation, judgment, previous experience, etc., are still could
not be fully covered by robots. This means, that even with current technologies,
service robots are not able completely to replace humans and provide services of
the same quality as humans. On the other side, by supporting humans in deliver-
ing such services, in the contexts of future development of AI and machine learn-
ing, the human-robot boundary in terms of service providing could become more
transparent and invisible.
In this paper, we provide a review of service robots by their definitions, ac-
cording to the applied standards, a classification of the service robots by their dif-
ferent types of usage, according to IUE group’s definition. A review of the chal-
lenges in front of services providers, IT technologies and robot designers in order
such service robots to deliver services, comparable with humans is presented
Both reviews is supposed to be used as a basis for future reviews and researches,
including architecture and technologies details.
2. Robots and service robots’ definitions
Toward the unification and understanding, deployment, building and main-
tenance of robots, some committees (i.e., Technical Committee of the Interna-
tional Organization for Standardization) defined a standard Robotics — Vocabu-
lary, where all related to robotics terms and definitions are described with aim
to consolidate their usage. This chapter is a short review of the main standards
and definitions, according to ISO 8373:2021 and the International Federation of
Robotics (IFR).
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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines Technical
Committee (TC) ISO/TC 184 in order to manage standards in the field of auto-
mation systems and their integration, related to design, manufacture and mainte-
nance, supply of products and related services. Areas of standardization include
information systems, automation and control systems, and their integration with
technologies.
According to the definition of provided in ISO 8373:2021 [1], a service ro-
bot is a robot that performs automated useful tasks, with the exception of indus-
trial automation applications. This means that robots have a degree of autonomy,
which is determined by their ability to perform one or more predefined tasks or
perform tasks, considering the input information from robot-related sensors – the
so-called “Adaptability”. Based on that dependency, the robots could be classi-
fied as fully autonomous or partially autonomous ones [15].
The standard also provides unification of terms, rules and common under-
standing from all stakeholders – from analysts and designers following program-
mers and engineers, to end-customers. In order the meanings in the accompa-
nying standards not to be acknowledged on a different-from-standard way, the
standard gives a classification into the following categories:
• standards for mechanical structure;
• standards for motion and movements;
• standards for programming and control of movements;
• standard for usage of sensors and navigation.
• standards for modules and modularity;
• productivity standards;
• security standards.
Considering the standard and the definition of service robots described
above, the following definitions of service robot activities for non-(professional
(personal) or and non-professional) use, are provided additionally defined:
• Activities performed by robots intended for personal use, are those in-
cluding handling or delivering items, providing guidance or guidance ser-
vices or information, and activities related to food and beverage preparation,
cleaning activities etc.;
• Activities performed by robots intended for professional use, are those
including inspection, surveillance, handling and delivering of items, provid-
ing guidance or guidance services or information, etc.
The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) [2] applies the definitions
and standards for service robots according to ISO 8373:2012. However, there
are some details that according to IFR are not specifically applicable or lead to
the distinction ambiguous definition of different categories of robots from the
generally accepted standard. To distinguish industrial robots from service robots,
IFR accepts ISO criteria determining their application in industrial automation
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to non-industrial automation as sufficient to classify a robot as an industrial or
service robot.
In this regard, the IFR develops its own definitions and classification of in-
dustrial robots and service robots, by defining their usage according to the areas
of application [3]:
• The service robot is defined as a standalone device, programmable and
moving across environment, which performs useful tasks for people or
equipment, except industrial automation applications;
• In some application areas, manually operated robotic devices with limited
autonomy are included. This is especially important if legal requirements
prohibit full autonomy, or the application domain requires only limited au-
tonomy;
• Customer service robot is a device designed for use by each non-profes-
sional and non-expert customer, as neither robot operation nor robot setup
requires a professionally trained operator;
• Professional service robot is a device, designed for use by trained profes-
sional operators and/or preliminary trained customers.
The usefulness of using and applying standards and common definitions ben-
efits with regulation of common understanding of definitions, sustainable quality
of product and service provided and unifying of the conditions for evaluation and
control of the delivered by manufacturers and used by consumers..
3. Classification of service robots
The various usages of service robots in different application and service do-
mains, following definitions according to the 2 main standards mentioned above
will be presented in this chapter. The main focus will be to go into details, by re-
viewing and representing on a hierarchical level categorization of service robots
by their applicative, professional and non-professional utilization.
The classification approach of IFR [3] distinguishes service robots into two
main categories: service robots by application criteria and service robots by type
of movement criteria. Both classification categories consist of high-level classes
that are summarized in groups.
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Figure 1: Service robots for professional use – turnover per application
The figure (see Figure 1) shows as well how the Covid-19 pandemic influent
positively the market demand of service robots used as disinfection solutions in
medicine domain and logistics solutions in warehouses and big factories as well.
3.1. Classification of service robots – movement criteria
There are four main types of movement: service robots can move on ground/
hard surface, on water movement, aerial movement, exoskeleton type, and any
other robots. The service robots that do not fit to any of these groups, or robots
that fall into more than one of the above classes, may be classified as “Others”.
The full classification scheme is presented in (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Service robots for professional use: movement criteria
The classification covers almost all service robots use cases of MIRACle
project. Of course, the usage of water and aerial based service robots in Intelli-
gent home environment is limited due to the space and other environmental fac-
tors. From the other side, wearable service robots’ usage have a wide application
as personal assistant, by helping and supporting disabled consumers.
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3.2. Classification of user/consumer service robots – application
criteria
The classification of service robots in regards of the respective application
criteria is presented (see Figure 3). According to the provisions it has two sepa-
rate categories: consumer-oriented robots presented in Chart 3short in this sec-
tion and professional service robots, presented in next section. In the class of
customer-oriented service robots, three main groups of applications are defined:
service robots for domestic tasks, social interaction service robots, and home
health care assistants.
The second application group is an example that justifies the deviation from
the criteria of ISO 8373:2021 for commercial versus non-commercial use for
the categorization of service robots [2], as was reviewed in Section 2 discussed
above. The criterion for consideration as a consumer robot in the third group is
the possibility of using the robot by non-specialist users.
Figure 3: Service robots for user and non-professional use: application criteria
This classification applies generally to Intelligent Home environment func-
tional group in MIRACle project IUE-Lab. The different layers of classification
represents use cases of services for home and/or building automation (light, elec-
tricity, heating) and generally almost all home equipment, that could use sensors
and wireless communications with remote management, cleaning and security.
3.3. Classification of professional service robots – application criteria
The professional service robot applications category uses eight different
groups of applications plus an additional group called “Other” professional ser-
vice robots. In the ninth group are considered all service robots that do not fit into
any of the above groups and classes.
All types of agricultural applications are grouped together in first group. Pro-
fessional cleaning robots are divided by analogy with home cleaning robots, con-
sidering the professional or trained operator usage and maintenance. Professional
inspection and maintenance robots are classified according to the site where they
are intended to be used. In this case it was accepted big buildings and other con-
struction for public use. The applied fourth group covers robots for construction
197
and demolition usage. Group 5 includes various logistics and transport robots in
different use cases. Robots grouped in medicine are used not only for diagnostics
and surgical operations (semi- or fully autonomous), but also for medical scien-
tific analysis, research and clinical trials [13].
Detailed graphical representation of professional service robots’ classifica-
tion by application criteria is given (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: Service robots for user and professional use: application criteria
Apart of the pure home or domestic usage, as mentioned in previous section,
the classification of service robots for professional usage have a broad usage and
are able to provide services in wide applicative domains. Here, Intelligent public
environments group applies, as it covers not only the so-called “smart cities”,
but also industrial applications in closed environment. Examples are Intelligent
transportation, Smart buildings, Smart government, Smart security, and of course
their service sustainability.
In this section was presented a classification overview of service robots, cov-
ering their usage by professional and non-professional operators and customers.
The mentioned classification of service robots in different categories and applica-
tion domains, based on IFR approach, is indicative and obviously covers most
of the service domain areas, which could be automated. We also described the
significant grow in usage of service robots during the recent years and indicative
statistics were shown at the beginning of the section.
4. Service robots’ adoption
According to the standard approach of providing customer services, peoples
must manage such services. As mentioned at the beginning, with advanced AI
[14], Internet of Things (IoT) and IT technologies, service robots are gradually
198
displacing service providers with intelligent robotic operators, mitigating or fully
avoiding the need of direct contact between user and service provider [7, 8].
For example, in many places (publicly accessible buildings and institutions like
airports, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, big shopping centers, governance institu-
tions, etc.) there are installed terminal devices in order to limit contact between
people and service providers, by providing the consumers with a new, interactive
services.
Although, the so-called service robots have fairly high-tech computing re-
sources, their functionalities in terms of autonomy level, which depends on the
limited AI required. This implies the provision and use by the consumer of only
a limited range of services. The theory specifies four intelligences required for
service tasks: mechanical, analytical, intuitive, and empathetic, and lays out the
way service providers should decide between humans and machines for accom-
plishing those tasks [8]. Mechanical intelligence corresponds to mostly algorith-
mic tasks that are often repetitive and require consistency and accuracy, such as
order-taking machines in restaurants or robots used in manufacturing assembly
processes [17]. These are essentially advanced forms of mechanical machines
of the past. Analytical intelligence corresponds to less routine tasks largely clas-
sification in nature (e.g., credit application determinations, market segmentation,
revenue predictions, etc.). AI is rapidly establishing its effectiveness at this level
of analytical intelligence/tasks as more training data becomes available [18]. Em-
pathy, intuition, and creativity are believed to be directly related to human con-
sciousness [19].
However, this is not so clear in the service robots, as they still cannot fully
cover the intuition and empathy of people [8]. Therefore, there is still a clear limit
of the activities defined by the service provider to be performed by people (ac-
tivities with more intuition, evaluation, judgment, previous experience, etc.) ver-
sus robots. This means, that even with today’s technology, service robots cannot
completely replace humans and provide services of the same quality as humans.
On the other hand, the increasing prevalence of service robots, as discussed
in the previous section is quite positively perceived by consumers as an inno-
vation and mitigation of risks arising by the interaction with the human factor.
Therefor there is an increase in confidence and trustworthy of service robots [10].
Additional value as well, is the increasingly human-friendly appearance of robots
(where applicable). This could be considered as first aspect regarding the appro-
priate adoption of service robots.
A second dimension of this adoption are the respective business models.
Based on that, the challenge for business owners is open. There is a necessity
to determine the definition of the user-friendliest interface of the service robot
(including appearance). This can provide with ways to upgrade existing services
provided, to increase the level of service delivery, with all of their advantages and
199
disadvantages. For the purpose research, based on surveys, feedback, analysis
and other appropriate tools are required.
The third aspect for the successful adoption of service robots, is the consum-
er attitude. We need to determine what are/would be the customer expectations
and what is the level of customer satisfaction. The comparison should be done
according to the delivery of services from service robots today. Such comparison
must take into account the limitations of technology and AI, today and in the near
future, assuming a positive trend in their development).
Undoubtedly, the introduction of a wider range of service robots is a chal-
lenge for both the users and the service providers, and solutions should be pro-
vided by business models and user interface designers. The challenge is also to
change the concept of service delivery with higher quality, consistent of con-
sumer needs, with increased trustworthiness and security.
5. Conclusion
Service robots have been introduced in many areas and there is strong evi-
dence that these robots can be adapted to specific needs in terms of tasks and
functions.
In this paper a review of standardized definitions of service robots were ana-
lyzed and presented. The classification and usage per different principles, appli-
cations, and domains were represented and graphically visualized. A study of the
interaction between service robots and customers, in terms of service provision
and delivery was explored, with outcome about the need of closest collaboration
between service providers, technology, designers and service robots’ manufactur-
ers.
Continuous and stronger integration between all of the above-mentioned
stakeholders, will evolve the further development of automation systems and
services in many sectors and will support the focus to become more services ori-
ented with even higher quality, customer satisfaction and trustworthy.
With appropriate scientific and mathematical modeling, based on a known
localization and positioning algorithms, integration of autonomous intelligent
systems, i.e., service robots in particular service domains navigating and provid-
ing guidance to consumers could be achieved.
Thereafter the author’s interests are focused on future researches and deploy-
ments of service models for:
• integrated infrastructure, based on intelligent sensors and management
devices;
• data management including data modelling;
• define service optimizations and delivery to the end consumers, based on
the above models.
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6. Acknowledgements
This paper is prepared with the support of MIRACle: Mechatronics, Innova-
tion, Robotics, Automation, Clean technologies – Establishment and develop-
ment of a Center for Competence in Mechatronics and Clean Technologies –
Laboratory Intelligent Urban Environment, funded by the Operational Program
Science and Education for smart growth 2014-2020, Project BG 05M2OP001-
1.002-0011.
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