Operation Mode Stand By

Communicating robot state | Atomic | Light

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Preamble

Type

Atomic Pattern, Communicating robot state

Ranking

* (tentative)

Version

1

Author

Kathrin Pollmann (kathrin.pollmann@iao.fraunhofer.de)

Design Challenge

Interaction Situation

The operation state of the robot needs to be transparent to the user at any time of the interaction. In all situations during which the robot is preparing to interact with the user in the near future, it actively engages in interaction with the user or the user provides input for the robot, the robot communicates that it is turned on and thus able to generate output and process user input during the interaction.

Communication
Goal

“I am in standby.”

Design Solution

Solution

Let the robot express that: To indicate the current operation mode of the robot it is recommended to use a dedicated status light that can be used independently of any other communication modality. This status light should be in an unobtrusive, non-attention grabbing color such as white, light yellow or light blue. To show that the robot is in standby, the status light should be slowly pulsating. Make sure to design a consistent behavior of the status light for the patterns Operation mode on, Operation mode off and Operation mode standby.

Rationale

In human-technology interaction it is very common to indicate the operation mode of a device through a glowing light. This design practice can easily be transferred to robots. To indicate that a device is in standby mode, we often find slowly pulsating light signals. I prominent example is the ‘breathing light’ of older Apple Macbooks.

References and
Context

Needed by: Inactive Dependent on: Operation mode on, Operation mode off

Light

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