Build-A-Bot: Developing A Software Platform For A Modular Mobile Robot

Abstract

This work aims to create a software platform that can manage dynamic changes in the configuration and functionalities of a modular robot that is currently in development, simulate its final appearance and behavior in augmented reality, and evaluate its usability through a user study. We developed a software platform for a modular collaborative robot where users can add, remove, and swap modules without code changes. The software platform displays possible functions based on the current configuration of modules. To enable 3D interaction with the robot's digital twin in real-Time, we utilized an AR environment with the HoloLens. We conducted a user study with 28 participants without prior knowledge of robotics to evaluate the software's usability and user experience for non-experts. The study results indicate that the software platform was well-received and user-friendly, with the digital twin in an AR environment providing a realistic robot simulation. Participants' subjective feedback on usability, user experience, and cognitive workload of different software components was collected, and the analysis showed that the platform is suitable for non-experts. The results showed that our design of the platform and its UI is well-Accepted and easy to use, shown by a SUS score of 74.29. We show how we built our software platform, as well as the simulation in AR. Moreover, we propose the practice of using AR simulation to design the software platform before future physical prototype development, in order to test different scenarios, and possibly inform the physical design. Finally, we recommend that future work explores usability with a more diverse set of non-expert users, as well as different tasks.