With a Little Help of Humans. An Exploratory Study of Delivery Robots Stuck in Snow

Humans, robots and artificial intelligences reconfiguring urban life in a crisis

“…For instance, the RAS operated without interruption during the major weather disruption caused by Storm Emma in 2018 (Morris et al, 2018;Pärnamaa, 2018). However, it must be noted that the RAS was not specifically designed for adverse conditions-robots are currently unable to transverse flooded areas (MKFM, 2020) and they sometimes required human assistance to complete their task in icy weather (Dempsey, 2022;Dobrosovestnova et al, 2022).…”

“…In some cases, if the operator cannot solve the problem remotely, a field assistant is dispatched from an operation center in the area. On occasion, robots also receive unscripted assistancee.g., when passers-by encounter a robot that has fallen off the pavement, is stuck in a tight space or is struggling to climb an icy incline (Dempsey, 2022;Dobrosovestnova et al, 2022).…”

Sharing the Sidewalk: Observing Delivery Robot Interactions with Pedestrians during a Pilot in Pittsburgh, PA

“…Another study in Estonia documented four days of observations of sidewalk delivery robots in public. The research found that people had generally positive interactions with robots while on the street and often commented on how cute the robots were on social media [26]. However, heavy snow led many robots to become stuck.…”

“…A Wizard of Oz study of what might prompt people to help a stuck robot found passersby were more likely to help a robot that asked for help verbally and was moving (indicating it was stuck but trying to move), though some people felt more empathy for a robot that was beeping [28]. While such helping behaviors may be seen as positive, Dobrosovestnova et al pose potential ethical issues [26]. They report that some social media comments collected during the Estonian deployment suggest that people were giving free labor to the delivery companies and that the robots were obstructing the public sidewalk due to how often they became stuck.…”

“…While much advancement has been made around the capabilities of navigation and operation within public spaces [21,23,24], social cues and implicit communication between PDDs and people present additional challenges [15]. While prior work has proposed communication strategies that can improve people's understanding of robot motion through non-verbal cues [34] or might engender trust in and helping of a robot [26,28,40], there is still little work showing how people respond to robot communication during deployments on public walkways. Consider the near collisions PDDs often had with cyclists referenced in Gehrke et al [4], the fleeing behaviors documented by [20], or the positive and negative aspects of people helping robots that become stuck as seen in Dobrosovestnova et al [26].…”