Design philosophy for service robots

The purpose of this paper is to present our design philosophy for service robotics research and development and describe our current efforts along this line. Our approach begins with a discussion of the role of service robotics and some features that are unique to service robotics. We then describe our design philosophy that emphasizes compromise and practicality in design. We will use this philosophy in the design and integration of a new service robot system, based on ISAC and HERO. ISAC is a stationary service robot designed to feed physically challenged individuals that is operated by voice command. HERO is a small mobile robot integrated into the system to provide new functionality for the user. We will make use of our design philosophy to solve some of the robot navigation problems and describe how our approach will help us solve these problems in an efficient manner. Some problems will be approached by a technical solution, and other problems will be solved through an expanded user interface and appeal to the intelligence of the user of the system. Performance of a useful service with limited intervention from a user at a reasonable cost is our goal.