TourIT: Conversational AI tour services robot with autonomous line follower line follower navigation for Father George J. Willman, SJ Museum

ABSTRACT: STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: The use of robots in tourism, previously seen as a novelty, has gained importance. Rsearchers have focused on integrating a robot into tour guiding at Father George J. Willman, SJ Museum. They have formulated questions to guide further research into integrating robots into the tourism sector effectively. 1. What are the main key features of the robot that can help in the tour guiding experience of both the tour guide and the tourists? 2. What are the factors that may affect the tour guiding experience in deploying the robot in the museum? 3. What is the performance of the robot according to its physical capabilities, information reliability, and customer interaction? RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The Museums are selected as the research setting. The study aims to evaluate the usability of the technology in the museum context, benefitting museum administrators, technology developers, and the tourism sector in boosting their popularity using the novelty of tour guide robots. This research investigates the post-study usability of a line follower navigation system with RFID technology, obstacle detection, and the GPT-3-5-Turbo language model API in a museum setting. The research methodology involves a literature review, participant, technology, introduction, and questionnaire completion. The choice of a quantitative logic of inquiry allows for measurable and statistically significant data. The questionnaire measures various aspects of usability, and statistical analysis will be conducted on the data. The findings will contribute to improving the visitor experience and adapting to the challenges faced by the tourism industry. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: The researchers conducted a Quality Assessment of the prototype to test all the features including the battery life, user interface system, motor and line follower navigation, anti-collision system, web application functionalities, and visitor counter system. All features mentioned passed the test with a notable result being the tour time of about 22 minutes and the battery life of lasting 16 hours in actual implementation and a theoretical peak battery life of 24 hours. The robot performance metrics were determined by testing the robots tour time, line follower accuracy, and RFID response and detection. The survey result used the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PPSUQ) which showed an excellent rating in System Usability, Information Quality, and Interface Quality categories. Overall, users were very satisfied with the robot and its application inside of the museum. CONCLUSION: The proponents have created an interactive touring services robot named TourIT that utilizes conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) to interact with visitors at the Father George J. Willman SJ Museum. TourIT also features an autonomous line follower system for navigation and a web application for monitoring the robot’s status and updating the database. Additional features, such as dynamic facial expressions and stereo speakers, have been added to enhance the user experience. Prototype testing and quality assessment have yielded positive results indicating that TourIT’s functionalities are working as intended. The Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) was used to evaluate the TourIT robot’s features and capabilities, as well as the quality of its web application. The robot scored a mean of 1.31 for its System Usefulness (SYSUSE) sub-scale, which is graded as Excellent, indicating that it has successfully met the user’s expectations in performing the role of a touring robot. Martha’s INFOQUAL, which corresponds to the accuracy of TourIT’s provision of AI-generated information, was rated at a mean of 1.29, also indicating an Excellent grade. The web application’s user interface and experience (UI/UX) scored a mean of 1.29, graded as Excellent. Overall, after testing and evaluating the functionality of the overall system, the robot scored a cumulative mean of 1.29 from the conducted PSSUQ data gathering, which grades TourIT excellent in meeting and performing all indicated objectives as a touring robot and assistant to tour guides in Father George J. William SJ Museum. RECOMMENDATION: The proposed improvements include using an infrared (IR) array of sensors and a PID control system algorithm for better navigation, using more powerful single-board computers (SBC) with increased memory, incorporating a powerful motor for better support, adding more ultrasonic sensors and proximity sensors for enhanced better obstacle detection and crowd control, using lightweight acrylic material for enhanced mobility, using a wall-mounted time-of-flight (ToF) sensor and an OLED screen for the people counter, utilizing offline text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-to-text (STT) modules instead of internet-dependent solutions, ensuring stable and high-speed internet connectivity, implementing a logging system for system changes and data analytics, expanding the knowledge base of the language model more through reliable sources, and developing an algorithm/program for visitors to choose specific exhibits instead of following the tour guide robot throughout the tour.

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