Service Robotics Lab

Helping to innovate service delivery

Service robots will play an increasingly prominent role in the coming years in the way organizations serve their customers in physical environments. Thanks to developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech and voice technology, motor and sensory technology, service robots are capable of more and more. But what exactly is the added value of service robots for the organization? What opportunities do service robots offer to innovate service delivery and how do you best deploy them? The Service Robotics Lab of the HvA contributes to this specific area.

” The deployment of service robots offers service encounter organizations new opportunities to create value and innovate their service business model. Because of this relevance we have been explicitly given the following central research question from the field: “What are the opportunities that service robots offer to innovate service encounters and how can these opportunities best be utilized from the perspectives of customers, staff, and the organization?” To answer this question, the SRL works closely with companies, universities and industry organizations. We provide applied research. Besides research in retail, we also do research in non-profit sectors (government, healthcare). The insights we gain are disseminated towards both the professional field and education.”
Tibert Verhagen, professor Emerging Technologies for Business

About the Service Robotics Lab
The Service Robotics Lab (SRL) is an initiative of the Centre for Market Insights and the Program Entrepreneurship of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The SRL has been researching the added value of service robots since November 1, 2019. Central to this lab are the opportunities that service robots offer to innovate the direct interaction between customer and organization during the service process (the service encounter). The focus of the SRL is on service robots that function independently, have a physical interface, and are applied to interact with customers, communicate, and provide a service. A good example of a service robot is the humanoid robot Pepper.

Our Robot colleagues


Meet Pepper	Meet Sanbot	Meet Alpha Mini

CAN WE DO SOMETHING FOR YOU?

	@ ENTREPRENEURS Are you interested in the possibilities of service robots? Is there a need within your organization for more insight into how service robots can best be applied? Together, we can conduct research into the effects of robot technology on your organization’s services. This will give you access to the knowledge needed to deploy service robots most effectively.
	@ TECH DEVELOPERS We test and validate your service robots in a ‘real life setting’. In this way we demonstrate the added value of your service robots for your customers.
	@ STUDENTS The Service Robotics Lab offers motivated students a place for a (thesis) research and/or internship. This allows you to work closely with researchers, tech developers and companies. A current update of the internship/graduation offerings can be found here.

Contact the Service Robotics Lab? Feel free to email us at sil@hva.nl.

CURRENT PROJECTS

Robots in retail (KIEM 2020)
Together with the VU Social AI group, TMO Fashion business school, and two fashion stores, we are investigating how retailers can best deploy social robots. By experimenting in physical stores, we want to gain insight into the customer as a robot user. This will allow us to give advice on robot scripts, among other things, and how retailers can best deploy robots.
Robots at telecom stores
In collaboration with a telecom store, we are investigating what their customers would think of robots in the store. Here we are looking at issues such as reducing waiting times in stores. The findings help telecom stores with a decision on how best to use robots in the stores.
Graduation projects: Robots and staff
Together with two of our interns (Lars Brusse and Femke Verseveld) we are gaining insight into how consumers view robots in stores. By means of vignette methods it is possible to investigate this in the store that the customer himself often visits. Where Lars looks at robot tasks in DIY stores and drugstores, Femke investigates specific robot perceptions. In both projects, the role of staff is a recurring theme.

PUBLICATIONS

At this moment we do not have English publications, but we do have publications in Dutch, which you can find below.

ABOUT US


Tibert Verhagen Professor Emerging Technologies for Business	Jesse Weltevreden Professor Digital Commerce	Ingrid Wakkee Professor Entrepreneurship

Frederik Situmeang Associate Professor, senior researcher	Selmar Meents Associate Professor, senior researcher	Michelle Straver Junior research Service Robotics