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To locate a book in the library, the librarian will no longer need to leave his post.

A small robot will direct the user to the shelf where the volume he needs is located.

The idea is of Antonio Pérez, a student of the Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering, who has developed this invention in his Master's Thesis, starting with a robot that already existed in the market and to which sensors have been incorporated to improve its usefulness in the library.

The work, directed by Óscar Martínez and Francisco Ortiz, has focused on making the robot work exclusively in a library, although it is true that, as its creator points out, it could be used in other areas, such as in a cafeteria.

"In principle we wanted to do for the cafeteria, but it is an environment with many obstacles, we had to refine the system a lot and to avoid problems we prefer to use it for the library," he says.

The robot is of low commercial cost, which has cost around 800 euros.

The structure of the robot has been modified to add an extra sensor that provides a wider and more precise field of vision than the one that brought the defect so that it can avoid both fixed and mobile objects.

The overall price has been about 4,000 euros paid by the university itself, which will be used by the robot.

On the other hand, one of the co-directors of TFM, Óscar Martínez, explained that the young man was very interested in doing a mobile service robotics project, after thinking about an application close to society they realized that until now there was no nothing similar in the libraries.

Until now, if someone asked for a book and could not find it, the librarian had to leave his desk at reception to go to the bookshelf where the book was located.

Now, it is the librarian himself who gives the indications to the robot to go to the shelf where the volume is being searched.

Although Antonio completes the master's degree with this project and now plans to take advantage of an Erasmus + project, his work director states that the ideal would be for another student to continue Antonio's line of research to improve this robot or give it new uses.

Source: UPCT