An entertaining robot prototype for pets

Abstract

PurposeRobots come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from manipulators in the industrial assembly line, to house cleaners, and to carebots of the elderly and sick. In recent years entertaining robots have been developed to engage adults and children into playing and learning. There are however no robots that have been specifically designed to entertain pets. The purpose of this paper is to present a prototype developed to engage pets into outdoor playing.Design/methodology/approachA prototype that can engage a dog or a cat into playing was designed, built, and tested by a group of senior students. The enclosure of the prototype has the shape of a round shell. Within this shell there is a sensor interfacing unit, which can interpret sounds generated by the animals, and a light and sound system designed to interact with the animals.FindingsThe testing results showed that the prototype was able to fulfill requirements for outdoor playing, such as being waterproof and able to travel through grass. Testing of the individual sensor interfacing circuits demonstrated the interactive capability. Dogs were chosen to be the subjects to be entertained. However, it is envisioned that a smaller version of this prototype can be suitable for cats.Originality/valueThis is the first prototype that explores ways to entertain pets when their human owners are absent or busy. The prototype developed is a good start for any intelligent robotic systems specifically designed to entertain pets.

Users' attitudes toward service robots in South Korea

“…A variety of robots such as entertainment, service and industrial robots have been developed. Among these, service robots have been developed to perform specific home tasks such as vacuum cleaning, dish washing (Dautenhahn, 2007), helping the elderly and disabled, and helping people with various activities (Dario et al, 1999;Liu et al, 2010;Shibata and Wada, 2011). With this growing wave, the scale of service robots' global market is expected to expand to more than US$21 billion by 2014 (Marketsandmarkets.com, 2010).…”