Seite 3: Examples of Service Robots

Service robots are responsible for services, entertainment and attention; they pick up crockery and cutlery, food and medication, monitor the environment of their owners or the condition of patients and keep their surroundings in the desired condition. If they are equipped with sensors, if they have intelligence and memory, they gradually become omniscient companions. They know what their owner does, what he or she says, how he or she feels, what he or she is wearing, what is happening in their environment, and they know what passers-by in towns and villages are up to, and report it probably to their operators or devices, and computers of all kinds, such as the Internet of things.

Just like industrial robots increasingly leave their prisons and dwellings, and become increasingly mobile and universal, and continuously move closer to humans, the service robots increasingly free themselves from internal and external constraints and enter into a coexistence with us. By studying the literature and going through the world with open eyes, one more and more often meets service robots, subdivided as follows:

1. Safety and surveillance robots
2. Transport and delivery robots
3. Information and navigation robots
4. Entertainment and toy robots

Then there are, for example, the mentioned nursing and therapy robots and combat robots (if you want to include these as service robots), which in this article are no further addressed. Some of the species are on their way as prototypes, others in continuous and standardized use. Having multiple names for a species is not a coincidence; often multiple tasks are possible with a certain specification, and thus transport and delivery are very close. Hereafter, the species will be outlined briefly in relation to their purposes and functions, and exemplary products indicated [2].

Security and surveillance robots are spreading in urban districts, in shopping malls and on the company premises, as rolling and flying machines [3]. Their job is to take care of the safety of firms, visitors, and customers. The K5 by Knightscope, for example, "lives" in the shopping center at Stanford. It constantly rolls through the area and reports every unusual and suspicious incident to its central control office, which evaluates the situation and takes measures, where appropriate. The cone-shaped security and surveillance robot weighs over 100 kilos and is 1.20 meters high. Its Chinese counterpart, the AnBot, is equipped with a stun gun, which has to be released manually. Another surveillance robot is Sen.se (Mother), which is actually more a small-format monitor mainly intended for domestic use or the 7Links Home Security Rover HSR-1, which certainly can be considered a robot.

Transport and delivery robots convey items of all kinds, like parcels and purchases from one party (often the provider or broker) to another (often the customer) or they accompany and relieve pedestrians and cyclists of their burden. In 2016, Swiss Post tested small transport robots by Starship Technologies [14] in Berne, as did Hermes in Hamburg. They drive on their six wheels, so the plan, to a customer who opens the flap using a code he or she received via text message, and retrieves the parcel. These robots are quite small and light, half a meter high, and weigh approx. 20 kilos.

Another model is the Care-O-bot by Fraunhofer (150 kilos, 158 centimeters according to the data sheet), which will be used not only in nursing homes (it is in fact used as a prototype there), but also, for example, at trade fairs. A.L.O. is another example, a service robot, which brings orders to the room guests at a hotel in California. This robot, also known as "Botlr", is 91 centimeters high and weighs 45 kilos [12]. Gita by Piaggio is a "selfbalancing two-wheeled cargo robot", which strictly follows its owner or goes its own way, a self-rolling suitcase or a messenger on behalf of its master. Gita is 66 centimeters high, can carry up to 18 kilos and reaches up to 35 km/h [11].

Information and navigation robots drive or go through parks and sites, they walk about in museums, trade fairs and showrooms, and inform visitors and customers about events and sightseeing options and lead them to the desired location. They find - last but not least - their uses in hotels, at the reception desk for example [13]. Often they are equipped with displays, special touch screens and natural language skills. Accordingly, they provide textual or visual information or talk with their users. In addition, they use maps and technologies like GPS. An example is Obelix, as big as a teenager [10], which is meant to act as a tourist guide in cities, a prototype of the University of Freiburg, the ETH Zurich and other research and development facilities. Special devices are the so-called Beam. They do not roll autonomously about, but are remote-controlled. They are almost as big as an adult person. The delivery of presentation devices of this type can take place, among other things, with lidar.

Entertainment and toy robots serve the entertainment and amusement of users, not only of children and young persons, but also of adults. It is possible to use some of them for learning purposes. They dance, sing, play music, allow their construction and deconstruction, etc. Some are humanoid, others resemble animals. Some are as big as hands, others have the dimensions of cats or dogs, on which they may be modelled; others have the size of children and adolescents. WowWee and Splash Toys offer electronic toy dogs through online retailers. The LEGO robots (LEGO MINDSTORMS) take completely different shapes depending on the creativity of the user. Nao by Aldebaran or SoftBank can be used fairly universally, as well as Pepper by the same house, which is explicitly marketed as emotional robot able to detect and show emotions (but of course has not got any). Robots of this kind rarely leave a flat, a house or a building. Since they partly - as the latter models - are quite expensive, they are in use in common areas, often also in research institutions.