Towards More Robotic Assistance for Everyday Life

Abstract

The performance and flexibility of the latest robot technologies make it possible to bring more and more robots to everyday life. However, this also creates a number of challenges: safety, legal regulations, reliability, reusability, and also business models must be considered under special, difficult conditions in everyday life. Furthermore, the acceptance and interaction between humans and robots are of central importance for the success of service and assistance applications. This collection summarises 15 studies from the BMBF-funded program "Robots for Assistance: Interaction in the Field." The full studies are written in German and provide valuable insights into the challenges, potentials, and solutions for successful interaction in everyday environments. The collection is accompanied by this preface article, which, in addition to the interaction focus of the studies, addresses other important aspects for successful service and assistance robots in everyday life. Finally, the Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI) studies are summarised in English to enable the comparison and discussion of their challenges and approaches.