Commercial service robots in everyday environments

The application of service robots is no longer restrained to industrial environments. Several commercially available service robots for everyday use are already in service. They can be distinguished in two categories: museum, entertainment and information robots on one side and low-cost domestic robots on the other side. Installations of the first group are specific developments and rather high in price. They are able to safely navigate in public environments and to interact with human users. In the second group today's products are mainly vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers. Current developments focus on more intelligent navigation strategies for strategic area coverage and new applications, e.g. window cleaning. Also the integration of domestic robots with intelligent home infrastructure is becoming more and more important.