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. 2022 Aug:70:101993.
doi: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101993. Epub 2022 May 18.

Liaison, safeguard, and well-being: Analyzing the role of social robots during the COVID-19 pandemic

Laura Aymerich-Franch  1 , Iliana Ferrer  1
Affiliations

Liaison, safeguard, and well-being: Analyzing the role of social robots during the COVID-19 pandemic

Laura Aymerich-Franch et al. Technol Soc. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

We examine the implementation of social robots in real-world settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we analyze the areas in which social robots are being adopted, the roles and tasks being fulfilled, and the robot models being implemented. For this, we traced back and analyzed 240 deployment cases with 86 different social robots worldwide that have been adopted since the coronavirus outbreak. We found that social robot adoption during this period was strongly related to the use of this technology for crisis management. The social robots' capacity to perform the roles of liaison to minimize direct contact among humans, safeguard to ensure contagion risk-free environments, and well-being coach to protect mental and physical health, is key to explaining adoption within this context. The results of the study offer a complete overview of social robots' utilization in real life settings during the pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Healthcare; Robot deployment; Social robots.

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Conflict of interest statement

No competing interest exists.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Social robots performing functions related to the liaison role 1 Credits: A) Credited to Club First; B) Credited to Nuro; C) Credited to Cutii.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Social robots performing functions related to the safeguard role 2 Credits: A) Credited to Invento Robotics; B) Credited to Huawei Austria; C) Credited to Blue Ocean Robotics. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Social robots performing functions related to the well-being coach role 3 Credits: A) Luke McKernan, 2017, “Pepper”, CC BY-SA 2.0; B) Credited to Temi HK; C) Credited to CT Asia Robotics CO., LTD.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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