Ikigai robotics: How could robots satisfy social needs in a professional context?

Robots are playing an increasingly important role in very different professional and personal contexts, including that of railway maintenance, which is starting to integrate robotic tools. By confronting industrial robotics part of industry 4.0 and 5.0 with service robotics, we realize that the railway maintenance sector does not refer to industry as manufacturing, nor to service robotics as such but rather as a common space between these two branches of robotics. Our objective is to take advantage of these two types of robotics to introduce a new concept, ikigai robotics. This notion reveals and explores the symbiotic relationship between well-being at work and performance. We have conducted a study that specifically highlights the fact that the need for affiliation is a positive factor for both well-being at work and performance in the specific context of railway maintenance. Finally, we provide first guidelines for the design of ikigai robots and open a discussion on how to image this concept beyond our specific context.