When a Robot Gets Kicked, Look for the Cause
■ Why are you always right here?
Night on the ward. Nurse calls kept coming, and Takasugi was running around. Just before a corner, Hakobukun was stopped, waiting for someone to collect a delivery. Takasugi came around the corner with a cart, nearly hit it, and poked its wheel with her foot without thinking. "Why are you always right here?!" The next morning, Shiraishi checked the log: impacts detected again and again over the past few days. Nothing was broken.
■ Getting kicked may mean it is in the way
An article on research about hospital robots describes frustrated staff kicking a delivery robot, and even more who said they had wanted to (the original study is from the University of Wisconsin). Records like these are not for finding rough people. They are clues to where the robot is getting in the way of the work.
■ Conclusion: Before making it tougher, find what is in the way
Shiraishi plotted the impacts on the map. Every one was just before the same corner. The waiting spot moved past the corner into open space. "Here, I will not be in the way." Takasugi patted it: "Sorry about yesterday."
An impact log tells you less about how tough the robot is, and more about where it is parked.
