LibRob: An Autonomous Assistive Librarian

摘要

This study explores how new robotic systems can help library users efficiently locate the book they require. A survey conducted among Imperial College students has shown an absence of a time-efficient and organised method to find the books they are looking for in the college library. The solution implemented, LibRob, is an automated assistive robot that gives guidance to the users in finding the book they are searching for in an interactive manner to deliver a more satisfactory experience. LibRob is able to process a search request either by speech or by text and return a list of relevant books by author, subject or title. Once the user selects the book of interest, LibRob guides them to the shelf containing the book, then returns to its base station on completion. Experimental results demonstrate that the robot reduces the time necessary to find a book by 47.4%, and left 80% of the users satisfied with their experience, proving that human-robot interactions can greatly improve the efficiency of basic activities within a library environment.