HRI – "In the wild” In Rural India: A Feasibility Study

Abstract

This work was conducted to investigate the technological acceptance and social perception of a robot helper in a rural context. A feasibility study was carried out in a rural village in India with 11 participants with a water carrying task for the robot. A strong cultural influence was found in terms of gender perception of the robot, most participants perceived the robot’s gender as a female despite of the robot having a male’s voice. The overall social perception and usefulness of the robot was observed to be positive. We report some initial results and also some practical and logistical challenges while running such studies “in the wild” with rural subjects in this paper