IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2011 - 61

technical limitations intrinsic in the Segway platform. The
robot was also equipped with two additional powerful batteries that allowed it to work continually for about ten
hours. Thanks to the presence of special sensors and other
components [16], the robot was able to navigate autonomously avoiding obstacles while moving. With regard to
human-robot interfaces, the interaction with human beings
took place by means of a touch-screen interface and consisted of simple operations: pressing a graphical button
opened and closed the bin container and selecting the corresponding icon on the screen specified the type of waste
to be disposed of. The whole interaction procedure was
also accompanied by vocal messages. The robot was
designed with the usability and acceptance criteria [17]
in mind.
Figure 1. A view of Peccioli. (Photo courtesy of Giancarlo Teti.)

The Service Provided by DustCart
The service provided by DustCart during the test period in
Peccioli was on-demand door-to-door waste collection. The
robot was configured to collect three types of waste: undifferentiated, paper, and plastic. The service was in operation
from Monday to Sunday, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. except
on Tuesdays, when the service was in operation only from
3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. owing to the local market present in
the experimental area. To request the DustCart service, users
had to call a toll-free number. The calls were managed
automatically by the ambient intelligent (AmI) infrastructure (which is described later), which scheduled and allocated the robots. Once a robot was allocated the task, the
AmI sent a short message service (SMS) to the user, informing him/her of the arrival time of the robot.
The Municipality of Peccioli
Peccioli is a historic village located in the countryside of
Tuscany. The village, founded in the Middle Ages, was
built on top of a hill and presents the classical topography
of a medieval town, with old buildings and narrow, paved
streets of various gradients (Figure 1). About 5,000 people
live in Peccioli, with a large percentage of elderly people:
about 25% of the inhabitants are more than 65 years old.
The municipality of Peccioli has a strong penchant for
using advanced technologies, with a view to provide its
citizens with excellent public services. As a matter of fact,
since 1995, the municipality of Peccioli has been collaborating on joint research projects with Scuola Superiore
Sant'Anna (SSSA), and as a result, the citizens have had
the opportunity to use and test very advanced research and
experimentation facilities in the fields of aging, telemedicine, domotics, rehabilitation technologies, energy, environment, wellness, etc.
The Test Site
The test site covered three streets and a part of a square.
This is the very heart of the town, which is also called ciambellone (which means doughnut) on account of its round
shape (Figure 2). The total length of the path selected for

the test was approximately 300 m. Within the test site, the
streets are almost flat and paved, with shops, bars, restaurants, and other commercial activities on either side. It is
worth noting that this is not a pedestrian area, as the roads
can still be used for their conventional purpose. The busiest area of the town was selected as the test site to make
the robots' presence strongly noticeable to people, so as to

Camera
WiFi
Beacon
Collection Point
Docking/
Control Station
Discharge Area

Figure 2. The experimental site with the location of the
beacons, docking station, cameras, and access point of the
wireless network. (Photo courtesy of Giancarlo Teti.)

MARCH 2011

*

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2011

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2011 - Cover1
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