Museum Touring Through an Augmented Reality-Enhanced Robotic Assistant: Improving Learnability and Memory Retention

Abstract

While museums traditionally cater to visual perception, some are adopting novel approaches to aid visitors with impairments. In recent years, robot-based tour guides have become a popular museum attraction. Instead of traditional guides, special-purpose robots assist people and allow for more engaging multimodal touring. While promising, such robotics guides tend to prioritize efficiency and safety over inclusivity, focusing on collision avoidance and movement. At the same time, accessibility challenges magnified by different approaches to learning and disabilities remain underexplored. To tackle this issue, we propose to enhance robotic touring with augmented reality (AR) to overlay additional information onto a visitor’s view. Previous research suggests that AR can improve learning, knowledge retention, and accessibility, particularly when traditional approaches are impractical. Consequently, we integrated AR with a Lindsey robotic guiding system specifically designed to work in an open environment. Next, we tested the hypothesis that AR-enhanced robot guides improve learning and memory retention. A user study with 21 participants found that augmenting the robotic tour guide with AR can improve the learning outcomes of museum visitors.

BibTeX

				
					@ARTICLE{11078158,
  author={Tombling, James and Tadeja, Sławomir K. and Bohné, Thomas},
  journal={IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine}, 
  title={Museum Touring Through an Augmented Reality-Enhanced Robotic Assistant: Improving Learnability and Memory Retention}, 
  year={2025},
  volume={},
  number={},
  pages={2-9},
  keywords={Robots;Museums;Headphones;Collision avoidance;Three-dimensional displays;Mobile robots;Wireless fidelity;Navigation;Tracking;Automation},
  doi={10.1109/MRA.2025.3577178}}

				
			
APA Reference

J. Tombling, S. K. Tadeja and T. Bohné, “Museum Touring Through an Augmented Reality-Enhanced Robotic Assistant: Improving Learnability and Memory Retention,” in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, doi: 10.1109/MRA.2025.3577178.
keywords: {Robots;Museums;Headphones;Collision avoidance;Three-dimensional displays;Mobile robots;Wireless fidelity;Navigation;Tracking;Automation},

Cyber-human Lab Contributors

James Tombling

James is currently studying his master’s degree in robotics and autonomous systems at the university of Lincoln, taking part in the AgriFoRwArdS programme involving the...

Dr Sławomir Tadeja

Dr Slawomir K. Tadeja is a Postdoctoral Associate with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Here, he works...

Prof. Thomas Bohné

Thomas Bohné is the founder and head of the Cyber-Human Lab at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. He is also leading research...