Enhanced therapeutic interactivity using social robot Zeno

Abstract

Social robotics has emerged as a new research area in recent years. One of the reasons behind this emergence is the rapid pace of improvements in sensor, actuator and processing capabilities in modern hardware enabling robots to interact with humans more effectively than ever before. The motivation for the work presented in this paper is to use advanced human-robot head-eye interaction algorithms in order to create a robotic framework that assists physical therapists treating sensor-motor impairments, such as Autism and Cerebral Palsy by using robotic systems. The robotic platform used in our work is the social robot Zeno, which has a fantastically friendly appearance and bridges the previously reported uncanny valley. In this paper we report on a new coordination algorithm based on reinforcement learning implemented on Zeno for achieving human like head-eye coordination to visually engage patients with cognitive impairments. The experimental results show that the various methods implemented enables social robot Zeno achieve natural head-eye coordination with significant improvement in accuracy without the need of extensive kinematic analysis of the system.

An emotion recognition comparative study of autistic and typically-developing children using the zeno robot

“…RX-64s are used on the legs, hips and shoulders, and RX-28 servos for the waist. Using a combination of 3 Cirrus CS-101 STD 4g Micro Servos and 5 Hitec HS-65MG [18] the motors simulate facial expressions by actuating the Frubber facial skin. Additionally the R-50 robot is equipped with an HD camera in each motorized eye and two microphones.…”

Congratulations, It’s a Boy! Bench-Marking Children’s Perceptions of the Robokind Zeno-R25

“…The current production model of Zeno (Zeno-R25) is described as a humanoid boy robot in Robokind's promotional literature [15]. Further to this, various Zeno models are referred to as humanoid-boys, or variations thereof, across multiple papers [4,5,10,14,17,18]. To date, it seems there is no bench-marking of Zeno's 'gender' in the research literature.…”

“…A further fundamental assumption made across the literature is the life-like or human-like appearance and nature of the robot [1,2,5,14]. At present, one study indicates that while children perceive Zeno to be marginally more like a person than a machine; however, this is influenced by child's age [6].…”

Design and Ethical Concerns in Robotic Adjunct Therapy Protocols for Children with Autism

“…Data collection in HRI studies involves various measurements, ranging from video recordings [22], cardiac frequencies [23], observational analysis [24] to visual feedback [25]. Researchers in this field so far has come out with various methods to assess the impact of real-time and also pre-post interventions involving robots as part of the treatment of autism.…”