An Emotionally Expressive Cat-Like Robotic Guide for Unmanned Convenience Stores: A Design Study Inspired by the Bodega Cat

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-737-8_69How to use a DOI?

Keywords

animal-inspired design; service robot; human-robot interaction; unmanned convenience store; emotional warmth

Abstract

Highly automated unmanned convenience stores improve efficiency but often remove the social warmth of human interaction, potentially reducing customer satisfaction and revisit intention. This paper proposes a low-cost, animal-inspired interaction approach based on the behavioral characteristics of the bodega cat. A cat-like robotic guide was designed to perform greeting, companion-like following, patrolling, resting, and on-demand voice-based product finding, aiming to restore emotional warmth and companionship in automated retail settings. An exploratory between-subjects field study (N=8) compared the robotic cat condition with a no-robot control condition. Quantitative trends and qualitative interviews indicated that participants interacting with the robotic cat reported higher perceived warmth, enjoyment, and revisit intention, and experienced the store as less impersonal. The integration of subtle zoomorphic behaviors with practical voice assistance suggests a promising, low-cost design direction for emotionally expressive service robots in future unmanned retail environments.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuejia Du
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/08/18
TI  - An Emotionally Expressive Cat-Like Robotic Guide for Unmanned Convenience Stores: A Design Study Inspired by the Bodega Cat
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Art Design and Digital Technology (ADDT 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 583
EP  - 593
SN  - 2352-538X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-737-8_69
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-737-8_69
ID  - Du2026
ER  -