Social and Service Robots Deployed for Social Distancing - Optimization and Placement

Autonomous humanoid robots are increasingly integrated into our everyday life even if we can still consider them an unusual sight, especially in the Nordics. Autonomous robots of all kinds, various services and social robots, industrial and medical robots perform a broad spectrum of tasks alongside humans. Today, robots can play influential roles during pandemic situations where the amount of human contact could be decreased or avoided. This paper presents a heuristic approach that monitors an area by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to monitor the social distancing between groups and people. Based on the CCTV footage, an algorithm makes a decision that presents better placement for people or groups. Finally, a robot guides the person and groups placed too close to each other to the new location generated by the heuristic method.