Robots and Cultural Heritage: New Museum Experiences

Abstract

The introduction of new technologies to enhance the visiting museum experience is not a novelty. A large variety of interactive systems are nowadays available, including virtual tours, which makes cultural heritage accessible remotely. The theme of increase in accessibility and attractiveness has lately been faced with the employment of the service robotics, covering various types of applications. Regrettably, many of robotics solutions appear less successful in terms of utility and usability. On the basis of this awareness, a design for a new robotic solution for cultural heritage has been proposed. The project, developed at the royal residence of Racconigi Castle, consists of a telepresence robot designed as a tool to explore inaccessible areas of the heritage. The employed robot, called Virgil, was expressly designed for the project. The control of the robot is entrusted to the museum guides in order to enhance their work and enrich the cultural storytelling.

Tour guide robot: a 5G-enabled robot museum guide

“…In addition to these, over the last 20 years accessibility and attractiveness have been augmented with the employment of service robots, covering various types of applications and offering different degrees of utility and usability. Robots in museums generally fall into one of three categories: museum guides, telepresence platforms, and art installation themselves ( Miller et al, 2008 ; Germak et al, 2015 ).…”

Driving is believing: Using telepresence robots to access makerspace for teachers in rural areas

“…To date, telepresence robots have been increasingly adopted in various contexts. For instance, Germak et al (2015) explored the use of telepresence robots in museums and examined people's robotic museum experience of inaccessible heritage areas. Cheung et al (2018) focused on using telepresence robots to engage distant learners (eg, students with illness) in classroom activities.…”

“…For instance, Germak et al. (2015) explored the use of telepresence robots in museums and examined people's robotic museum experience of inaccessible heritage areas. Cheung et al.…”

Heritage Education and Research in Museums. Conceptual, Intellectual and Social Structure within a Knowledge Domain (2000–2019)

“…Robotics, with its possibilities for increasing the effectiveness, navigability and interactivity of exhibitions [59], is one of the new technological resources, along with augmented reality mentioned above [32], which have opened up a set of growing opportunities for improving heritage education by offering alternatives in order to personalise, localise and contextualise learning. With the help of robotics, ICT can provide added value to the learning process of cultural heritage, as it can facilitate access to different heritage elements and enable the communication and exchange of knowledge, information and ideas between people [57].…”