Aug 12, 2024

Imagine you are strolling across a public campus and you suddenly and unexpectedly come across a yellow, four-legged robot. You look around but can't immediately see anyone who seems to be responsible for the device. How do you behave, what do you think? This is exactly what we wanted to find out in a recently completed field test of the rokit project, which was also reported on by Deutschlandfunk, much to our delight. In the experiment, the robot "dog" spent a few hot July hours moving around the canteen forecourt in Magdeburg to carry out inspections of buildings, at least apparently. So far so ordinary, you would think, given that we are living in the year 2024. However, there was one subtle peculiarity: the robot moved completely autonomously in public spaces, i.e. without barriers and without remote control. This made it possible for us to observe unplanned and therefore - in contrast to laboratory research - natural reactions to such a device.