User centered design for intelligent service robots

This paper describes the development of a fetch-and-carry robot to assist physically impaired people in an office environment. Different methods involving users are employed in the project, including the task analysis, Hi-Fi simulation trials and focus group sessions. Through an iterative design process, a prototype robot system has been developed, with an enhanced robot platform including a graphical user interface and natural language interface. The users´ need for continuous feedback from the robot has led to the development of an animated character (CERO), which relates the two interface components and indicates the robot´s current state by using simple gestures