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

职业伤害继续对批发和零售劳动力造成不利影响，发病率和受伤人数居高不下，尤其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缺乏对行走表面的了解，如地板。机器人不仅可以比人类更好地评估步行表面，还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的零售环境中与机器人协作工作对健康和安全的影响，并利用这些机会减少人员坠落受伤。与机器人技术和自动化蓬勃发展的其他职业环境相比，在建立类似的广泛采用机器人之前，这种环境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减少跌倒风险暴露。从安全的角度来看，研究团队将重点研究移动机器人在不同环境下工作时的综合安全、工作量影响以及对零售业员工和客户的心理影响。本次研究工作有三个研究重点：推力1-识别和评估不同运营条件下移动机器人在零售环境中操作的风险。推力2-开发一种新功能，可以增加范围广泛的零售机器人，在执行主要功能(如清洁和库存检查)的同时测量室内地面。输出结果将被整合，以生成室内空间可步行地图，告知周围行人滑倒或绊倒的潜在风险。推力3-调查移动机器人和步行地图对现实世界零售场所工人身体跌倒风险暴露、认知工作量和心理影响的影响。此外，研究团队将评估防坠落功能是否可以提高专业工作者的整体技术接受度，最终降低技术采用门槛。教育和推广计划包括为工人以及研究生和本科生创造教育模块、培训机会--特别是那些来自代表性不足群体的学生，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智力优势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.