Exploring the Perceptions and Challenges of Social Robot Navigation: Two Case Studies in Different Socio-Technical Contexts

Service robot applications such as waitering, require robots to move in social spaces while preserving people’s comfort, known as social robot navigation (SRN). Prior work has proposed and evaluated several SRN methods mostly using quantitative measures, focusing only on one type of scenario, using one robot, or taking place in one socio-technical context. Yet it is still unclear what makes a moving service robot acceptable in a social environment. In this work, we present two case studies conducting real-life experiments and qualitatively evaluating an SRN approach in two different socio-technical contexts (Ecuador and the UK) with two different robots. Our findings highlight participant’s perceptions, experiences and emotional responses towards the acceptance of the navigating robot’s capabilities and appearance in indoor social spaces. We discuss how socio-technical factors such as robot’s speed and appearance along with the settings spatial constraints, can influence the acceptance and experience of SRN.