Post Occupancy Evaluation and Environmental Parameters Monitoring by a Humanoid Robot

Abstract

In the last years, the use of robots is always more common in the field of socially active robots. Many studies in the literature demonstrated the advantages. This work presents the application of a method combining the Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) and the monitoring of the environmental parameters by using a humanoid robot. The method was applied for a case study, an office of the National Research Council located in Palermo (IT). The first step of the method consists of a measurement session performed by the robot on the following environmental parameters: illuminance, noise level, temperature and humidity. They were measured in a grid of 20 points. During the second step, the robot individuated the occupant of the office and did a survey. Simultaneously, another measurement was carried out close to the occupant (using sensors brought by the robot). Finally, during the third step, the robot elaborated the data coming from the sensors and the information obtained from the survey by using a tool developed by the authors. Then, the robot communicated to the occupant the final report by giving suggestions according to his/her environmental comfort situation. The cooperation with the robot allowed both the compliance with the Standards and the user wellness to be acquired and compared. It has been significant to note that at the end of the measurement campaign appeared that in some cases the standard compliance did not imply the user wellness and vice-versa.