The use of autonomous delivery robots on footpaths and cycle paths is attracting both support and opposition. In addition to the positive aspects, questions about acceptable size, speed and distance from pedestrians remain unanswered. In order to prepare the public debate, systematic data collection in real-life scenarios is needed to specify interaction patterns and objective framework conditions.

The project is dedicated to the question: Where and how will small delivery robots be allowed to move in the future? This question is addressed from a technical and socio-scientific perspective. In an extensive multimodal measurement campaign, data will be collected while travelling in urban traffic areas and evidence-based general guidelines for delivery robots in traffic areas will be derived.

Operational and environmental data from various mobile robot systems will be collected over several months. The robot platforms move autonomously on monitored circuits in 2 differently configured urban operating areas (Freiberg and Gera). The robots' own sensors and external cameras collect data for urban environment navigation and for human-robot interaction. Multimodal sensor data sets (based on the vehicle sensors) are collected under different weather conditions and times of day.

The robots are filmed by an accompanying person and qualitative-quantitative empirical surveys are carried out to assess acceptance criteria and personal safety assessments of road users.

Based on this extensive data set, guidelines for robot navigation in urban areas are extracted. In addition, the findings are categorised in the context of traffic, liability and data protection law.

Project partners

• Hochschule Schmalkalden
• Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg

Associated partners

• TAG Immobilien AG
• Stadt Gera
• Behindertenverband des Landkreises Schmalkalden-Meiningen e.V.
• REWE René Scholz oHG
• Hermes Germany GmbH

Network coordinator and contact person

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Schrödel
  Hochschule Schmalkalden
  Blechhammer 9
  98574 Schmalkalden
  +49 (0)3683 688-2107
  f.schroedel(at)hs-sm.de

Third-party funder

• Innovationsinitiative mFUND des fördert das Bundesministerium für Digitales und Verkehr

• Runtime: 10/2022 - 09/2023 (12 mounths)
• Funding amount: 100.000,00 €
• pdf (german): RoboTraces - Robots are in town – Erfassung von Akzeptanzkriterien für den Einsatz von autonomen Mikromobilen