A consortium of Danish universities and companies has successfully completed a project called ‘Understanding the Implications of Robots Working in Everyday Public Interaction in Retail’. The project was part of the Collaboration Projectsscheme funded by Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science (UFS) via OdenseRobotics and carried out between August 2023-July 2024 by Aarhus University (PI), University of Southern Denmark, Coalescent Mobile Robots, Capra Robotics and RGC Management.

The companies and researchers worked together to better understand what are they main challenges and requirements for a successful human-robot interaction and implementation of mobile robots into retail environments and potentially other public spaces. The project was based on two real-world application scenarios involving robots operating at Bilka - a hypermarket in Odense, and Roseengaard Centret - a shopping mall in Odense. It was particularly the pioneering solutions implemented and tested by Coalescent Mobile Robots at Bilka, namely Serena, to provide rich first-hand insights into what it means to bring robots into busy public environments in practice. The collaboration resulted in setting  a basis for a novel approach ‘bottom-up responsible innovation’ that has been presented at the Robophilosophy Conference 2024. The main conclusion of the project was: Let the robotic innovation grow organically and trust the cultural learning competences of the people involved.