After more than a decade of HRI research, we still know too little about robots outside the laboratory. This project will develop low-cost, multipliable, robust systems, and employ ethnographic, use-case, and longitudinal studies to drive development and test their success. We will design smartphone-powered robots to take robotic companionship research out of the laboratory and into real-world settings, investigating the notion of companionship in the context of education, service, elder care, and the workplace. We will also study the role of large-scale sensor datasets (“big data”) on home-deployed personal robotics.
