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Marius Hoggenmueller, Luke Hespanhol, Alexander Wiethoff, Martin Tomitsch
Self-Moving Robots and Pulverised Urban Displays: Status Quo, Taxonomy & Challenges
Journal Article in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing - Special Issue on Pervasive Displays, 2020, ISSN 1617-4917, Springer, London, UK.

After almost a decade of relentless development, pervasive urban displays have fragmented into a diversity of approaches with radically dis- tinct characteristics in terms of how mobile they are, as well as the materials they are made of. In this article, we investigate such a diversity in terms of the relationships between key conceptual entities of pervasive urban displays, namely the displayed content, the enabling display technology and the sur- rounding physical environment. First, we propose a taxonomy for pervasive urban displays through two dimensions: increasing levels of physical integra- tion of content into the surrounding environment (attached, blended, physi- calised), and increasing levels of mobility of the display technology within the environment (fixed, portable, self-moving). We extend this taxonomy through looking at the relationship between content and display technology from a conceptual lens and present two categories, namely Screens and Printers. We then provide a classification of current approaches to the design of pervasive displays along these two dimensions and categories, and introduce a new class of pervasive display, which we call pulverised urban displays (PUDs). These displays represent content in a physical form, entangled with the built and natural environment which are capable of an autonomous change to their po- sition. Drawing on urban robotic devices and their capability to sense and manipulate the environment or act as a display itself, we present examples of PUDs. Finally, this article concludes with challenges for designing self-moving robotic and pulverised urban displays.