Abstract

MUNOZ PENA, Kevin  and  BACCA CORTES, Bladimir. GUI3DXBot: An Interactive Software Tool for a Tour-Guide Mobile Robot. Cienc. Ing. Neogranad. [online]. 2020, vol.30, n.1, pp.59-74.  Epub Aug 16, 2020. ISSN 0124-8170.  https://doi.org/10.18359/rcin.3644.

Recently, mobile robots have begun to appear in public places. To perform these tasks properly, mobile robots should interact with humans. This paper presents the development of GUI3DXBot, a software tool for a tour-guide mobile robot. It focuses on the development of various software modules needed to guide users in an office building. In this context, GUI3DXBot is a client-server application, in which the server-side runs into the robot and the client-side runs into a 10-inch Android tablet. The GUI3DXBot server-side oversees the perception, localization-mapping, and path planning tasks. The GUI3DXBot client-side implements the human-robot interface that allows users to request/cancel a tour-guide service, show the robot a location in the map, interact with users, and teleoperating the robot in case of emergency. The contributions of this paper are twofold: a software module design to guide users in an office building is proposed and the whole robot system is well integrated and fully tested. GUI3DXBot is tested using software integration and field tests. Field tests are performed over a two-week period, and users are surveyed. Survey results show that users think GUI3DXBot is friendly and intuitive, goal selection was very easy, interactive messages are very easy to understand. 90 % of users found the robot icon on the map useful, users found path drawing on the map useful, 90 % of users found the local-global map view useful, and the guidance experience was very satisfactory (70 %) and satisfactory (30 %).

Keywords : Human-robot interaction; mobile robot; service robotics; tour-guide robot.

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