ROBO-GUIDE: Autonomous navigation of dynamic spatial and social environments

ROBO-GUIDE is an open, voluntary, and bottom-up group project to build an autonomous robot to guide visitors through the Mappin and Pam Liversidge Buildings at the University of Sheffield. It is an interdisciplinary, cross-departmental project within Sheffield Robotics, giving undergraduates, PhD students, and early career researchers the opportunity to work together on a practical robotics research project. The project began in January 2015 as a joint initiative between researchers and undergraduates with a desire to obtain practical robotics experience and collaborate on projects outside of their own field. The project has included 12 team members from backgrounds across computer science, control engineering, psychology, and neuroscience. In a year, the project has produced eleven research publications in local, national, and international conferences, spawned a successful EPSRC-funded research proposal, and an EU H2020 submission. The project has given robotics research experience for undergraduates, an opportunity for PhD students to work outside their discipline, and experience of managing people and projects for early career researches. This paper discusses learning points of the project over to date and future implications. These include the interdisciplinary aspects that helped formulate the project, the attraction of undergraduates to working on a real research project, how well-directed and enthusiastic students can play a significant role in active research, and how providing space, time, and equipment to motivated students and early career researchers can lead to the development of sustainable new research programs. We highlight areas of difficulty encountered in the hope to motivate easier solutions in the future, including the need to source and secure funding to support equipment purchases and travel.