Future home and service robots will require advanced navigation and interaction capabilities.
In particular, domestic environments present open challenges that are hard to identify
by conducting controlled tests in home-like settings: there is the need to test and
evaluate navigation in the actual homes of users. This paper presents the experiences
of operating a mobile robot with manipulation capabilities and an open set of tasks
in extensive trials with real users, in their own homes. The main difficulties encountered
are the requirement to move safely in cluttered 3D environments, the problems related
to navigation in narrow spaces, and the need for an adaptive rather than fixed way
to approach the users. We describe our solutions based on RGB-D perception and evaluate
the integrated system for navigation in real home environments, pointing out remaining
challenges towards more advanced commercial solutions.
