Guiding Robot Guides
The Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS) in the School of Computer Science has been working since 2018 in partnership with the Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) on the development of Robotics technologies to assist visitors of the Lincoln Museum in their museum visits with the Lindsey: the tour Guide Robot project. The research led by prof Marc Hanheide, Dr Francesco Del Duchetto and Dr Paul Baxter has focused on giving the robot a way to sense the user engagement level and to adapt its behaviours based on the state of users during interactions, generating a positive impact in the local community who could freely interact with their own personal tour guide in the museum. The project has received further funding from the UKRI TAS Hub within the TARICS project to increase engagement and accessibility of the robot for people that are autistic and/or have learning disabilities.
Thanks to the support of the Lincoln Policy Hub, we were able to run a workshop with key stakeholders to present the findings of our case study with the Lindsey deployment and to co-discover the sector’s perspective and their needs around the use of robotics technologies in cultural spaces. On the 27th of June 2023, we have run a workshop with representatives from the Lincolnshire County Council (which manages the Lincoln Museum) and the Arts Council England.
We began the day by sharing key results of our deployment, which started in 2018 and continues to date, demonstrating the large number of interactions that an autonomous robot roaming around the museum can perform, supporting the work of the museum staff in their daily activities. Particularly, we focussed on showing the results of our research aimed at improving the engagement of visitors during interactions with the robot and how Machine Learning techniques may be used to “optimise” the user experience during guided tours. We presented anonymised data collected during the deployment, such as the tours and items that the visitors prefer more and the patterns in the number of visitors that arise when collecting a large number of data continuously for years.
In the second part of the activity, based on our Lindsey case study, we focused on discovering the challenges and opportunities for future deployments of robotics in cultural spaces. By discussing with stakeholders, we learned that one of the main challenges they face is being able to identify the needs and preferences of their visitors, which requires better technology for user data collection. Key areas of future research are the use of AI and Robotics technologies for widening access to collections to all, particularly the most disadvantaged.
The workshop concluded with plans for future engagements based on the common directions identified during the day. In particular, we are planning to run a workshop during the Frequency Festival 2023 in Lincoln to co-discover with the public the risks and potential benefits of using AI/Robotics in museums. This activity will also inform future collaborative projects to increase the impact of our research and the benefits for the public sector and local communities.