Long-term assessment of a service robot in a hotel environment

•Long-term evaluation in real environment under unsupervised conditions.•The evaluation methodology includes both qualitative and quantitative aspects.•A set of metrics are analyzed concerning social interaction and navigation.•Improvement of the robot’s performance through assessment feedback.

The long term evaluation of the Sacarino robot is presented in this paper. The study is aimed to improve the robot‘s capabilities as a bellboy in a hotel; walking alongside the guests, providing information about the city and the hotel and providing hotel-related services. The paper establishes a three-stage assessment methodology based on the continuous measurement of a set of metrics regarding navigation and interaction with guests. Sacarino has been automatically collecting information in a real hotel environment for long periods of time. The acquired information has been analyzed and used to improve the robot’s operation in the hotel through successive refinements. Some interesting considerations and useful hints for the researchers of service robots have been extracted from the analysis of the results.