Guest article by Cristina Mele and Gaby Odekerken-Schröder.
In the evolving landscape of service innovation, introducing social robots represents a significant leap forward in providing emotional support and functional aid for engaged actors. Researchers at the FII Smart Innovation lab and the Maastricht Center for Robots have a family of robots. Each of them, with its unique design and functionality, addresses the specific needs of its target audience, illustrating the potential of technology to enhance actors’ experience and well-being. We work with Abii, Hiro, Pepper, Ivy, Temi, Buddy and Greeting MiniBot. We present preliminary insights from recent projects on ABii, Hiro, Ivy and Pepper.
The ABII project: Empowering Vulnerable Children in Education
We explore the impact of AI-based service robots in engaging vulnerable children. It focuses on understanding how these technological interventions can create supportive environments that foster affective, behavioural and cognitive development. By integrating Abii into educational settings, we suggest a path forward in which technology acts as a tool and as a companion and facilitator of personalised support for children facing various vulnerabilities. Abii’s AI-driven interactions contribute to a more engaging and personalised learning experience. The robot adapts to each child’s learning pace and style, fostering cognitive development and socio-emotional skills such as empathy, teamwork, and self-confidence.
The HIRO Project: Minimal Design Robots in Long-Term Elderly Care
The HIRO project introduces a minimal design service robot aimed at enhancing the well-being of patients with dementia. This innovative use of sound as a non-verbal communication tool helps to evoke emotional responses and foster a sense of companionship among dementia patients. Anecdotal evidence and preliminary studies suggest that interactions with Hiro can lead to noticeable improvements in mood, cognitive function, and social interaction. By mirroring the psychological benefits associated with doll therapy, Hiro helps alleviate feelings of loneliness and confusion, offering a comforting presence that enhances its users’ overall quality of life. Significant benefits arise in reducing cognitive decline, promoting social interaction, and encouraging physical activity.
On the other hand, the project aims to provide an enhanced perspective on integrating social robots into caregiving practices. A complementary focus is put on caregiver burden, defined as the strain or load borne by a person who cares for a chronically ill, disabled, or older adult. Hiro contributes to reducing stress, objectives and relationship burdens. The social robot reduces anxiety, affects relationships with patients, and improves caregivers’ daily routines, allowing them to organise activities better, manage time, and reduce workload.
The IVY project: Social Robots in Mental Health Care
The Ivy project relates to investigating an innovation ecosystem in the Netherlands targeting individuals with mental health issues in six long-term care facilities. The project, started in March 2023 and will end after Summer 2024, focuses on integrating the service robot Ivy. The research is based on insights from fieldwork, emphasizing the ecosystem perspective in innovation management. This ecosystem aims to address labor shortages in long-term care by implementing and scaling service robots while prioritizing user-centric, affordable, and high-quality care. Actors include six long-term care providers, a health insurance provider, a technology provider, and two research institutes. Since we are in the middle of the project it is too early to share findings.
The PEPPER robot
- Emotional Support in Children’s Hospital
Pepper is a humanoid robot designed to interact with humans naturally and engagingly. Pepper’s primary role in entertaining children in a hospital setting involves providing emotional support and engaging interaction. The robot has features such as voice recognition, touch sensors, and recognising and responding to human emotions. These abilities enable Pepper to interact with children in a way that can be both comforting and entertaining, potentially reducing the stress and anxiety associated with hospital stays. Through games, storytelling, and simple conversations, Pepper can offer a distraction from the clinical environment and procedures, thus contributing to a more positive hospital experience for young patients.
- Functional Support in an Academic Library
In addition to the emotional support Pepper can offer, Pepper can also be used to offer functional help. Pepper can answer trivial questions from students and staff visiting an academic library. Consider questions like ‘Where is the bathroom?’, ‘What is the Wi-Fi code?’ or ‘Where can I get a coffee?’. Pepper unburdens the librarians through simple and clear directions, who can use their resources to support students and staff with more content-related questions.
Towards an Integrative Approach in Service Innovation
All studies underscore the importance of a multidisciplinary and ecosystem approach in service innovation, blending technology development with insights from healthcare, psychology, and education to significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of service provision. They contribute to the growing body of literature on human-robot interaction, suggesting that the thoughtful integration of AI and robotics in service sectors can improve outcomes for vulnerable populations and engaged actors.
Addressing Challenges
The integration of social robots in service-oriented contexts introduces multifaceted challenges. These include ensuring seamless collaboration with human workers, understanding the impact on the well-being of all actors, and considering the broader implications for their ecosystems. A synergistic strategy emphasising technological advancements, ethical considerations, and actor engagement is paramount. Research needs to address these challenges through collaborative efforts that can lead to the successful implementation of service robots, enhancing value co-creation and improving actors’ well-being.
Navigating the Future
As we stand on the brink of a new era in service innovation, integrating social robots into care for engaged actors offers promising prospects. The insights from these studies highlight the potential of technology to transform lives and call for a collaborative effort among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in designing and promoting truly human-centric services. The future of service innovation lies in our ability to leverage technology that fundamentally enriches human experiences and lives. Embracing this integrative approach will enable us to meet the challenges of today while paving the way for a more inclusive and compassionate tomorrow.
Maastricht Center for Robots
The Maastricht Center for Robots (MCR) is dedicated to maximising the potential of service robots through collaborative efforts among various stakeholders. Its mission revolves around facilitating the adoption and integration of social and service robots, with a strong emphasis on ensuring sustainable benefits for customers, patients, employees, organisations, and society. The vision of MCR is to drive sustainable progress in service robots by seamlessly integrating research, education, and real-world impact. Through synthesising cutting-edge research, supporting organisations, and nurturing the leaders of tomorrow, the centre aims to co-create knowledge and empower individuals to shape the future of service robots.
This centre of excellence at Maastricht University built a strong knowledge base with more than 20 published papers on service robots in international peer-reviewed journals. In addition, MCR actively collaborates with industry partners and trains PhD candidates in bridging research, education and real-world impact.
The FII Smart Innovation Lab
The FII Smart Innovation Lab is committed to exploring the frontiers of service innovation, highlighting its business and social impacts. Key themes include the adoption of social robots and the development of advanced chatbots. These areas are investigated primarily in healthcare, educational, and retailing services, in which innovation can significantly change the user experience and value co-creation practices. The lab develops projects aimed at using social robots that can interact with and nudge human actors, facilitating processes such as assistance to the elderly or support to children, with particular attention to ethical implications and improving people’s daily lives and well-being. Similarly, regarding chatbots, the focus is on using artificial intelligence algorithms that allow for fluid and human-like conversation, are capable of handling complex requests, and provide accurate real-time responses, all aiming to improve the accessibility and efficiency of customer services.
With these projects, the FII Smart Innovation Lab positions itself at the forefront of applied research with an increasing number of international peer-reviewed publications and an ecosystem of multiple partners such as companies, cooperatives, scholars, and PhD students.
Cristina Mele
Professor of Service Innovation
University of Naples Federico II
Gaby Odekerken-Schröder
Chair in Customer-Centric Service Science
Head of Department of Marketing and Supply Chain
Maastricht University
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Illustration generated in Bing.
