RESEARCH STUDY AIMS TO FURTHER UNDERSTAND BEHAVIORS AND RESPONSES TO AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS IN BUSY PUBLIC SPACES (WHILE KEEPING OUR PLAZA CLEAN!)
Have you noticed trash and recycling bins rolling around Albee Square over the past few weeks? You were not hallucinating. Cornell Tech, in partnership with Downtown Brooklyn Partnership have been deploying “trashbots” – remote controlled trash cans – as part of a larger study to understand the ways in which people respond to service robots operating in public spaces. The study is part of DBP’s Living Lab program, with which experimental tech is tested in real world environments to advance research and to better inform DBP’s public space management.
The trashbots are garbage bins on recycled hoverboards with 360-degree cameras attached, and are designed to appear as autonomous robots, although they are actually human-controlled. Cornell Tech hopes to use the findings to inform the design of robot sensing, behavior, and response routines to help make trashbots more user-friendly for those who may encounter them. The trashbots, for both recycling and trash, were in operation at Albee Square during July.
The Cornell Tech research team will use this study to help further inform the future of human-computer interaction (HCI). By using this Wizard of Oz technique, the trashbots are controlled by a hidden human but appear to simulate an autonomous robot in order to elicit natural interaction and behaviors.
During the study the research team found that people generally welcome the wandering bins, they encourage social interaction between strangers, and that the trashbots encourage people to dispose of waste properly. The team is aiming to conduct the trashbot study in each of the five boroughs in order to observe how they interact with diverse populations and to develop a finer understanding of how the public perceives robots “in the wild.” The research gathered through these deployment phases will also provide guidance on the future design of social robots generally.
