guidebot-api

Backend API supporting a campus guide robot used in a Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research study. The robot gives wayfinding/directions to visitors and periodically polls this API to log its interactions and report that it's still active, so researchers can monitor the robot's status remotely without being physically present.

Purpose

• Interaction logging — the robot reports what was said (by itself and by the person it's guiding) so conversations/sessions can be reviewed and analyzed later.
• Remote status tracking — the robot polls the API on an interval, giving researchers a way to tell whether it's online and functioning without checking on it in person.
• Directions — the robot requests wayfinding/direction data for the campus from the API rather than embedding it locally.

Status

This project is in early development. The API surface, data models, and services are still being built out; several files are intentional placeholders:

• Controllers/InteractionController.cs — POST /Interaction (LogInteraction) is scaffolded but not yet implemented (currently returns 404).
• Models/Interaction.cs — has an initial shape (Speech, RobotTurn) but is expected to change as logging requirements are finalized.
• Models/Event.cs, Services/DirectionsService.cs, Services/IDirectionService.cs — empty stubs reserved for the directions feature and event/status logging; not implemented yet.

Tech stack

• .NET 9 / ASP.NET Core (MVC + Web API controllers)
• C#
• Docker for containerized deployment

Project structure

Controllers/
  HomeController.cs         Default MVC scaffold (index/privacy/error views)
  InteractionController.cs  Robot-facing endpoint(s) for logging interactions
Models/
  Interaction.cs             A single logged interaction (speech turn)
  Event.cs                   (planned) robot/system events, e.g. status pings
  ErrorViewModel.cs           MVC error view model
Services/
  IDirectionService.cs       (planned) interface for directions/wayfinding logic
  DirectionsService.cs        (planned) implementation
Views/                        Razor views for the default MVC scaffold
Dockerfile
Program.cs                    App startup / middleware pipeline
appsettings*.json             Configuration

Running locally

Prerequisites: .NET 9 SDK.

dotnet restore
dotnet run

By default this launches on http://localhost:5270 (see Properties/launchSettings.json for the HTTPS profile and ports).

Running with Docker

docker build -t guidebot-api .
docker run -p 8080:8080 guidebot-api

The container listens on port 8080 (ASPNETCORE_HTTP_PORTS=8080).

Authentication

Endpoints intended for use by the robot (e.g. LogInteraction) are marked [Authorize]. Authentication scheme/configuration is not yet wired up in Program.cs.

Context

Built for the UNR Robotics Research Lab to support an in-person HRI study with a guide robot deployed on a college campus.