Some applications of service robots within domestic and working environments are envisaged to be a significant part of our lives in the not too distant future. They are developed to autonomously accomplish different tasks either on behalf of or in collaboration with a human being. Robots can perceive and interpret data from the external environment, so they also collect personal information and habits; they can plan, navigate, and manipulate objects, eventually intruding in our personal space and disturbing us in the current activities. Indeed, such capabilities need to be socially enhanced to ensure their effective deployment and to favour a significant social impact. The modelling and evaluation of a service robot’s behaviour, while not interacting with a human, have only been marginally considered in the last few years. But these can be expected to play a key role in developing socially acceptable robotic applications that can be used widely. To explore this research direction, we present research objectives related to the effective development of socially-aware service robots that are not involved in tasks that require explicit interaction with a person. Such discussion aims at highlighting some of the future challenges that will be posed for the social robotics community in the next years.

设想在不久的将来，服务机器人在家庭和工作环境中的某些应用将成为我们生活中的重要组成部分。开发它们的目的是代表人类或与人类协作自动完成不同的任务。机器人可以感知并解释来自外部环境的数据，因此它们还可以收集个人信息和习惯。他们可以计划，导航和操纵对象，最终侵入我们的个人空间并在当前活动中打扰我们。实际上，需要在社交上增强此类功能，以确保有效部署并支持重大的社会影响。在最近的几年中，对服务机器人行为的建模和评估虽然不与人互动，但只是很少考虑。但是，可以预期这些在开发可广泛使用的社会认可的机器人应用程序中将发挥关键作用。为了探索这一研究方向，我们提出了与有效开发社交意识的服务机器人相关的研究目标，这些机器人不参与需要与人进行明确交互的任务。此类讨论旨在强调未来几年将对社交机器人社区提出的一些未来挑战。