SHARA in the Land of Oz: A Platform for the Rapid Development of Human-Robot-Interactions Using Social Robot Simulator and Wizard of Oz

Social robotics is increasingly used in healthcare and well-being scenarios, addressing various care needs. Evaluating these robots on a large scale involves challenges, such as transporting and deploying physical robots and adapting their behavior in the field. This paper proposes a web-based infrastructure for evaluating SHARA, a social robot aiding elderly people. This system helps developers and stakeholders overcome evaluation limitations by using a semi-automatic Wizard of Oz (WoZ) approach. The WoZ operator can observe the simulated robot behavior and intervene if necessary, enabling a flexible human-in-the-loop control. The infrastructure streamlines the iterative evaluation and improvement of care services, allowing simulation-based feedback on robot interfaces and user interactions before physical implementation. This approach reduces costs and clarifies user and system requirements. An expert panel evaluation highlighted the system’s potential, particularly praising the evaluation approach and the accessibility of the web-based simulation. This paper outlines the infrastructure’s architecture and implementation, providing a foundation for future developments in social robotics evaluation and design.