Collaborative Research: NRI: Reducing Falling Risk in Robot-Assisted Retail Environments

职业伤害继续对批发和零售业的劳动力造成不利影响，发生率和受伤人数一直居高不下，特别是与跌倒有关的伤害。以前的研究表明，职业性跌倒主要是由于对行走表面（如地板）缺乏了解。机器人不仅可以比人类更好地评估行走表面，而且可以更有效地向同事和客户传达重要的安全相关信息。该项目的主要目标是调查批发和零售人员在典型零售环境中与机器人协作对健康和安全的影响，并利用这些机会减少人员坠落伤害。与机器人和自动化蓬勃发展的其他职业环境相比，这种环境在建立机器人的广泛采用之前提出了需要解决的挑战。从机器人系统的角度来看，研究团队的目标是通过向环境中的人提供实时步行地图来大幅降低跌倒风险。从安全的角度来看，研究团队将专注于在各种情况下与移动的机器人一起工作时的综合安全性，工作量影响以及对零售工人和客户的心理影响。这项研究工作有三个研究方向：方向1 -识别和评估与移动的机器人在零售环境中在不同操作条件下操作相关的风险。目标2 -开发一种新功能，可以增强各种零售机器人的测量室内地面，同时执行清洁和库存检查等主要功能。输出将被整合，以生成一个室内空间步行地图，告知周围的行人滑倒或绊倒的潜在风险。推力3 -调查移动的机器人和步行地图对现实世界零售场所中工人的身体跌倒风险暴露、认知工作负荷和心理影响的影响。此外，研究小组将评估防坠落功能是否能提高专业工人的整体技术接受度，并最终降低技术采用障碍。教育和推广计划包括创建教育模块，为工人以及研究生和本科生提供培训机会，特别是那些来自代表性不足的群体，以及K12活动。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Occupational injuries continue to adversely affect the wholesale and retail workforce with persistently high incidence rates and injury counts, especially fall-related injuries. Previous work has indicated that occupational falling can be primarily attributed to a lack of understanding of the walking surfaces, such as floors. Robots can be used not only to assess the walking surface better than humans, but also can convey important safety related information more effectively to co-workers as well as customers. The main goal of this project is to investigate the health and safety implications of the wholesale and retail crew collaboratively working with robots in a typical retail environment, and use these opportunities to reduce personnel falling injuries. Compared to other occupational settings where robotics and automation have been flourishing, this environment presents challenges to be addressed before a comparable widespread adoption of robots can be established. From the robotics systems point of view, the research team aims to substantially reduce the falling risk exposure by providing a real-time walkability map to people in the environment. From the safety perspective, the research team will focus on comprehensive safety, workload influence, and the psychological impacts on retail workers and customers when working with/around mobile robots under varied circumstances.There are three research thrusts to pursue in this research work: Thrust 1 - identify and evaluate the risks associated with the operation of mobile robots in retail environments under different operating conditions. Thrust 2 - develop a new function that could augment a wide range of retail robots to survey the indoor ground surface while performing primary functions such as cleaning and inventory checking. Outputs will be integrated to generate an indoor space walkability map informing the surrounding pedestrians of potential risks of slipping or tripping. Thrust 3 - investigate the effects of mobile robots and the walkability map on workers’ physical falling risk exposure, cognitive workload and psychological impacts in real-world retail sites. In addition, the research team will evaluate if the falling prevention function can improve the overall technology acceptance among professional workers and eventually lower the technology adoption barrier. The education and outreach plan includes creating educational modules, training opportunities for workers as well as graduate and undergraduate students—especially those from underrepresented groups, and K12 activities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.