With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, service robots play an increasingly important role in frontline service across various industries. However, many questions surrounding service robots as a novel service option are still less studied, and thus, remain uncertain to marketers. Therefore, this dissertation investigated and addressed some of these questions, by assessing the potential advantages of service robots, not only as compared to human employees, but also among service robots’ different humanlike vocal features, including voice types, accents, and speaking styles. Specifically, to address the research gaps identified through an in-depth literature review conducted in Chapter 2, a series of empirical studies were conducted and presented in Chapter 3 (Essay One) and Chapter 4 (Essay Two). Chapter 3 begins with Study 1a, an investigation into the potential advantages of service robots as compared to human employees in a hotel check-in setting. The findings suggest that service robots outperform human employees in customers’ enjoyment of the interactions. Study 1b replicated the earlier study in a fast-food restaurant setting, where service robots were found to outperform human employees in customers’ word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions as well. In Study 2, an investigation specifically into a service robot’s vocal design was conducted, by comparing three potential voice types (male, female, or robotic) in a movie theater setting. The findings reveal that a human male voice is the most ideal across various customer outcomes, highlighting the importance for marketers to determine the optimal voice type for a service robot. Chapter 4 reports further investigations of service robots’ vocal design, specifically regarding their accents and speaking styles. In Study 3, four subordinate studies were conducted in a hotel check-in setting. The findings suggest that when a service robot’s accent is congruent with its local region, it enhances customers’ perceived enjoyment of the interactions and various customer outcomes. In Study 4, a further investigation was conducted into a service robot’s speaking style, to assess its potential influence under a service failure and recovery context. The findings suggest that a service robot’s use of a colloquial speaking style attenuates customers’ perceived competence of the service robot and related customer outcomes, which further highlight the importance of a service robot’s appropriate language use, especially during a service recovery. A general discussion regarding Study 1 to Study 4 was provided in Chapter 5, offering valuable implications to both scholars and marketers, and suggesting promising avenues for future research.

By investigating the social and environmental politics that are embodied in service robots, I show how both the laboratory culture and wider society expect their own respective values and environmental cultures to displace the other. This dissertation highlights the importance of understanding how robotics laboratories and larger society mutually transform each other, using a framework I call Laboratorization of Everyday Life. I analyze how the development of robotics involves a mutual transformation of the robot, the laboratory, and particular values and norms involving education, gender, class, body image, and living spaces in the society the laboratory is embedded within. Actors in laboratories are not hermetically sealed, but fully part of society. Similarly, actors in society change their everyday environments to better conform to laboratory settings, in order to make the wider world "useful" for technological innovation. People living in modern society are actually living in a semi-laboratory, which is embedded within the robot's technological default settings regarding values and environment, which are selected by the laboratory's engineers and designers. By conducting trial and error in everyday life, robot users have agency to re-mold service robots and norms built into their design and technological capacities. That is, the users are also able to rebuild and reinterpret values and environmental cultures inside their service robots. Ultimately, my dissertation offers a potential perspective on how robotics laboratories and larger society work together through robots to open lines of trustful communication between scientific, social, and political communities. / Doctor of Philosophy / Using a robot in everyday life requires many things, including lighting, sounds, noise, room temperature, knowledge, proper usage, and expectations about the robot. Since a robot is a creation of the laboratory, roboticists bake assumptions, such as environmental settings, gender bias, racism, norms, and values, into the robot. When users use the robot in their everyday life, they have to modify their everyday environments, understandings, concepts, and values to fit with the assumptions already in it. Hence, roboticists, users, and the robot transform everyday life into a semi-laboratory: a society that embodies the selected assumptions from the robotics laboratory. In order to examine this phenomenon, I propose a framework I call the "Laboratorization of Everyday Life". I analyze how the development of robotics involves a mutual transformation of the robot, the laboratory, and particular values and norms involving education, gender, class, body image, and living spaces in the society the robot is embedded within. Actors in laboratories are not hermetically sealed off, but fully part of society.  I argue that people living in modern society are actually living in a semi-laboratory, which is embedded within the robot's technological default settings regarding social values and environment, which are selected by the laboratory's engineers and designers. Although modern society is embedded within the selected values from the laboratory, people still have agency to accept, modify, rewrite, and reject the assumptions coming with the robot. By conducting trial and error in everyday life, users have agency to re-mold robots and norms built into their design and technological capacities. That is, the users are also able to rebuild and reinterpret values and environmental cultures inside their robots. This framework shows how robotics laboratories and larger society work together through robots to open lines of communication between scientific, social, and political communities.

This thesis is focused in design low cost robotic manipulator known as SCARA. Chapters are sorted chronological by degrees of manipulator development. Thesis will present metods of inverse kinematics, that determines intaraction between joint rotation and cartesian coordina-tes of gripper. Next it introduces flowcharts for controlling machine and explains the control software determinater especially for microcontroller called Arduino MEGA.

Användandet av servicerobotar i olika sammanhang, har under de senare åren stadigt ökat och är idag ett allt vanligare inslag på företag och organisationers webbsidor. Servicerobotar har stor potential att skapa fördelar i kontakten med användare, eftersom de kan tillhandahålla outtröttlig och snabb service på ett kostnadseffektivt sätt. Denna teknik skapar även möjligheten att i viss utsträckning automatisera den viktiga kundkontakten, vilken kan leda till effektivisering av olika affärsprocesser och kostnadsminskningar utan att inskränka på upplevd kvalitet. Den tidigare forskning som utförts inom området för servicerobotar har främst varit inriktad mot att undersöka vilka aspekter ur ett användarperspektiv av en servicerobot som är essentiella för att uppnå god användbarhet och användaracceptans. Man har i tidigare forskning även identifierat att det ur ett organisationsperspektiv saknas ett etablerat och standardiserat tillvägagångssätt för hur man bör hantera design och tillämpning av interaktiva servicerobotar. Denna studie har avsett att undersöka hur design och tillämpning av en servicerobot bör hanteras ur en organisatorisk synvinkel, vilket uppnåtts genom en fallstudie i det Växjö baserade företaget Visma Spcs och deras servicerobot Vera. I fallstudien har en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod tillämpats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med personer involverade i Vera projektet. Resultatet av fallstudien visade att det finns viktiga aspekter i arbetet med servicerobotar som bör beaktas ur en organisatorisk synvinkel, för att kunna skapa en användbar och accepterad servicerobot. Slutsatsen av studien visade på tre principer: Förstå användaren, Förstå Kontexten, samt Skapande, kontroll och underhåll, som är viktiga delar att beakta vid design och tillämpning av interaktiva servicerobotar ur en organisatorisk synvinkel. Att förstå användaren kommer vara viktigt för att skapa en användarupplevelse som uppfyller användarnas behov. Förstå kontexten kommer vara kritiskt vid val av robottyp, samt vilken typ av mjukvarulösning som ska användas och skapande, kontroll och underhåll kommer vara viktigt för att se till att serviceroboten upprätthåller hög system-, informations- och servicekvalitet. / The use of service robots in various contexts has steadily increased in recent years and has become an increasingly common feature of different companies and organizations' websites. Service robots have been proven to have a great potential to provide important benefits in contact with users, where service robots can provide tireless and fast service to users in a cost-effective manner. This technology enables companies and organizations to a certain extent automate the very important customer contact, which can lead to more efficient business processes and cost minimization without restricting perceived quality. The previous research carried out in the field of service robots has focused primarily on investigating which aspects of a service robot that are essential for achieving good usability and user acceptance from a user perspective. Previous research has also identified that there is no established and standardized approach for how to handle the design and application of interactive service robots from an organizational perspective. This study has intended to investigate how the design and application of a service robot should be managed from an organizational perspective, which was achieved through a case study in the Växjö based company Visma Spcs and their service robot Vera. In the case study, a qualitative survey method has been applied through semi-structured interviews with people involved in the Vera project. The result of the case study showed that there are important aspects in the work with service robots that should be considered from an organizational perspective, in order to be able to create a useful and accepted service robot. The conclusion of the study showed three principles: Understand the user, Understand the context, and Creation, control and maintenance, which are important parts to consider when designing and applying interactive service robots from an organizational perspective. Understanding the user will be important for creating a user experience that meets the users' needs. Understanding the context will be critical when choosing a robot type, and what type of software solution is to be used. Creation, control and maintenance will be important to ensure that the service robot maintains high system, information and service quality.

Atualmente, os sistemas robóticos têm sido necessários para uma diversidade de novos produtos, como em robôs de serviço e em robôs para ambientes perigosos. Como consequência, um aumento da complexidade desses sistemas e observada, exigindo também atenção considerável para a qualidade e a produtividade. Vale destacar que a complexidade de parte desses sistemas decorre, parcial ou totalmente, da necessidade de se utilizar diversos robôs para compor a solução. Em outra perspectiva, arquiteturas de referência surgiram como um tipo especial de arquitetura de software que consegue agregar conhecimento de domínios específicos, facilitando o desenvolvimento, padronização e evolução de sistemas de software. Nessa perspectiva, arquiteturas de referência foram também propostas para o domínio de robótica e de têm sido consideradas como um elemento importante para o desenvolvimento de sistemas para esse domínio. No entanto, existe uma falta de arquiteturas de referência especializadas em sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço. Assim, a principal contribuição desse trabalho e o apoio ao desenvolvimento de sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço. Para isso, o principal resultado, aqui apresentado, e o estabelecimento da SiMuS, uma arquitetura de referência que agrega o conhecimento e a experiência de como organizar sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço, visando a escalabilidade, evolução e reuso. Para o estabelecimento dessa arquitetura, foi utilizado o ProSA-RA, um processo que sistematiza o projeto, representação e avaliação de arquiteturas de referência. Resultados alcançados por uma inspeção, por meio de checklist, e estudo de caso conduzidos evidenciam que a SiMuS e uma arquitetura de referência viável e reusável para o desenvolvimento de sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço / Currently, robotic systems have been more and more required for a diversity of new products, such as in service robots and in robots for dangerous environments. As a consequence, an increase in the complexity of these systems is observed, requiring also considerable attention to their quality and productivity. One of the main complexities faced by systems is the problem of control multiple robots to complete a task. In another perspective, reference architectures have emerged as a special type of software architecture that achieves well-recognized understanding of specific domains, facilitating the development, standardization, and evolution of software systems. In this perspective, reference architectures have also been proposed for the robotic domain and they have been considered an important element to the development of systems for that domain. However, there is a lack of reference architectures specialized in multi-robotic systems for service robots. Thus, the main contribution of this work is to support the development of multi-robotic for service robots. For that, the main result presented here is the establishment of SiMuS, a reference architecture that combines the knowledge and experience of how to organize multi-robotic systems for service robots, aiming at scalability, evolution and reuse. For establishing this architecture, was used the ProSA-RA, a process that systematizes the design, representation and evaluation of reference architectures. Results achieved by a checklist inspection and case study conduction, show that the SiMuS is a viable and reusable reference architecture for developing multi-robotic systems service robots

Service robots need to be aware of persons in their vicinity in order to interact with them. People tracking enables the robot to perceive persons by fusing the information of several sensors. Most robots rely on laser range scanners and RGB cameras for this task. The thesis focuses on the detection and tracking of heads. This allows the robot to establish eye contact, which makes interactions feel more natural. Developing a fast and reliable pose-invariant head detector is challenging. The head detector that is proposed in this thesis works well on frontal heads, but is not fully pose-invariant. This thesis further explores adaptive tracking to keep track of heads that do not face the robot. Finally, head detector and adaptive tracker are combined within a new people tracking framework and experiments show its effectiveness compared to a state-of-the-art system.

Atualmente, os sistemas robóticos têm sido necessários para uma diversidade de novos produtos, como em robôs de serviço e em robôs para ambientes perigosos. Como consequência, um aumento da complexidade desses sistemas e observada, exigindo também atenção considerável para a qualidade e a produtividade. Vale destacar que a complexidade de parte desses sistemas decorre, parcial ou totalmente, da necessidade de se utilizar diversos robôs para compor a solução. Em outra perspectiva, arquiteturas de referência surgiram como um tipo especial de arquitetura de software que consegue agregar conhecimento de domínios específicos, facilitando o desenvolvimento, padronização e evolução de sistemas de software. Nessa perspectiva, arquiteturas de referência foram também propostas para o domínio de robótica e de têm sido consideradas como um elemento importante para o desenvolvimento de sistemas para esse domínio. No entanto, existe uma falta de arquiteturas de referência especializadas em sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço. Assim, a principal contribuição desse trabalho e o apoio ao desenvolvimento de sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço. Para isso, o principal resultado, aqui apresentado, e o estabelecimento da SiMuS, uma arquitetura de referência que agrega o conhecimento e a experiência de como organizar sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço, visando a escalabilidade, evolução e reuso. Para o estabelecimento dessa arquitetura, foi utilizado o ProSA-RA, um processo que sistematiza o projeto, representação e avaliação de arquiteturas de referência. Resultados alcançados por uma inspeção, por meio de checklist, e estudo de caso conduzidos evidenciam que a SiMuS e uma arquitetura de referência viável e reusável para o desenvolvimento de sistemas multirrobóticos de serviço / Currently, robotic systems have been more and more required for a diversity of new products, such as in service robots and in robots for dangerous environments. As a consequence, an increase in the complexity of these systems is observed, requiring also considerable attention to their quality and productivity. One of the main complexities faced by systems is the problem of control multiple robots to complete a task. In another perspective, reference architectures have emerged as a special type of software architecture that achieves well-recognized understanding of specific domains, facilitating the development, standardization, and evolution of software systems. In this perspective, reference architectures have also been proposed for the robotic domain and they have been considered an important element to the development of systems for that domain. However, there is a lack of reference architectures specialized in multi-robotic systems for service robots. Thus, the main contribution of this work is to support the development of multi-robotic for service robots. For that, the main result presented here is the establishment of SiMuS, a reference architecture that combines the knowledge and experience of how to organize multi-robotic systems for service robots, aiming at scalability, evolution and reuse. For establishing this architecture, was used the ProSA-RA, a process that systematizes the design, representation and evaluation of reference architectures. Results achieved by a checklist inspection and case study conduction, show that the SiMuS is a viable and reusable reference architecture for developing multi-robotic systems service robots

The master thesis deals with the issue of a single-wheeled robot, especially its construction and movement in more difficult terrain with the possibility of collecting samples. A variant of the robot balanced by a pair of gyroscopes was chosen as the most suitable construction. The robot is able to move in a space with an inclination of up to 24° and is equipped with its own manipulator design.

This thesis focuses on the design of the hexacopter construction for photographic purposes with maximum load of 4 kg. When constructing a hexacopter it is necessary to take into account a number of factors. For the actual construction the correct dimensioning of the supporting frame is important as well as the locomotor system. The main concept of this thesis includes three-axis gimbal for camera control. The verification of the structure strength was performed using FEM analysis. This work describes also the selection of individual components and their wiring. The end is dedicated to safety and different procedures for reducing operation risks.

The aim of the thesis is to design, create and evaluate a user interface for control of service robot. I will focus on controlling of robotic arm, to be able to accomplish pick and place tasks. Specifically I will work with robotic platform PR2. The thesis describes different devices for sensing and perception of a user and usage of information from these devices to control robotic arm. Moreover, different methods for controlling of robotic arm are described there. Application design and implementation is presented further in this thesis together with description of the experiments used for evaluation of application.