"One Soy Latte for Daniel": Visual and Movement Communication of Intention from a Robot Waiter to a Group of Customers

Abstract: Service robots are increasingly employed in the hospitality industry for delivering food orders in restaurants. However, in current practice the robot often arrives at a fixed location for each table when delivering orders to different patrons in the same dining group, thus requiring a human staff member or the customers themselves to identify and retrieve each order. This study investigates how to improve the robot's service behaviours to facilitate clear intention communication to a group of users, thus achieving accurate delivery and positive user experiences. Specifically, we conduct user studies (N=30) with a Temi service robot as a representative delivery robot currently adopted in restaurants. We investigated two factors in the robot's intent communication, namely visualisation and movement trajectories, and their influence on the objective and subjective interaction outcomes. A robot personalising its movement trajectory and stopping location in addition to displaying a visualisation of the order yields more accurate intent communication and successful order delivery, as well as more positive user perception towards the robot and its service. Our results also showed that individuals in a group have different interaction experiences.