Lindsey the Tour Guide Robot - Usage Patterns in a Museum Long-Term Deployment

The long-term deployment of autonomous robots co-located with humans in real-world scenarios remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we present the “Lindsey” tour guide robot system in which we attempt to increase the social capability of current state-of-the-art robotic technologies. The robot is currently deployed at a museum displaying local archaeology where it is providing guided tours and information to visitors. The robot is operating autonomously daily, navigating around the museum and engaging with the public, with on-site assistance from roboticists only in cases of hardware/software malfunctions. In a deployment lasting seven months up to now, it has travelled nearly 300km and has delivered more than 2300 guided tours. First, we describe the robot framework and the management interfaces implemented. We then analyse the data collected up to now with the goal of understanding and modelling the visitors' behavior in terms of their engagement with the technology. These data suggest that while short-term engagement is readily gained, continued engagement with the robot tour guide is likely to require more refined and robust socially interactive behaviours. The deployed system presents us with an opportunity to empirically address these issues.