NAOMOBBY, desarrollo de una herramienta software basada en visión por computador y robótica para apoyar la rehabilitación en terapias físicas de miembros superiores

Nowadays, 21% of Colombian population, and the 35% of the population in Cauca Valley have limited movement of body, arms, hands or legs. Then, the quality of life of these people is highly affected, since they have limitations in daily living activities. Physical rehabilitation therapies allow the restoration of movement and maximum functional capacity in people. Successful physical therapies depend on empathy and motivation with the rehabilitation process (RP), then the more empathy of patients with the RP, the more patient willingness regarding the rehabilitation therapy. Motivation is crucial in rehabilitation, and it is used as a fundamental rehabilitation out-come. This work has the aim to present the software tool called NAOMOBBY to support physical rehabilitation therapies of shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. NAOMOBBY includes a GUI for therapist, a Kinect sensor and an interactive humanoid robot NAO to increase the patient willingness regarding the RP. NAOMOBBY includes the following modules: configuration/management, movement reproduction, and results report using GAS methodology. NAOMOBBY was tested using quantitative and field tests. Quantitative tests measure the error in the Kinect sensor of the NAO robot joint motions to bring users a suitable feedback. Quantitative results were obtained using three basic functional motions. The mean square error for these three motions were 0,373%, 0,096%, and 1,129% respectively. Field tests were conducted at the SURGIR neuro-rehabilitation center using 3 physiotherapists who considered the NAOMOBBY software tool as a novel, easy to use, and that encourage patients to perform the physical therapy.Actualmente, el 21% de la población en Colombia y el 35% de la población del Valle del Cauca tiene limitaciones en el movimiento del cuerpo, brazos, manos o piernas. Entonces, la calidad de vida de estas personas está altamente afectado, ya que ellas tienen limitaciones al desarrollar actividades del diario vivir. La rehabilitación a través de la terapia física, permite la restauración del movimiento y la máxima capacidad funcional en las personas. Terapias físicas exitosas dependen de la empatía y motivación con el proceso de rehabilitación (PR), entonces entre más alta la empatía de los pacientes con el PR, más alta la disposición será de los pacientes en relación con la terapia de rehabilitación. Motivación es crucial en rehabilitación, y es usado como un resultado determinante de la rehabilitación. Este trabajo tiene el objetivo de presentar la herramienta software llamada NAOMOBBY para soportar las terapias de rehabilitación física de las articulaciones de hombro, codo y muñeca. NAOMOBBY incluye una GUI para terapeutas, un sensor Kinect y un robot interactivo humanoide NAO con el fin de incrementar la disposición del paciente hacia el PR. NAOMOBBY incluye los siguientes módulos: configuración y gestión, reproducción de movimiento y reporte de resultados usando la metodología GAS. NAOMOBBY fue probada usando pruebas cuantitativas y de campo. Las pruebas cuantitativas miden el error en el sensor Kinect de los movimientos de las articulaciones del robot NAO, con el fin de brindar a los usuarios una adecuada realimentación. Los resultados cuantitativos fueron obtenidos usando tres movimientos funcionales básicos. Los errores cuadráticos medios de estos tres movimientos fueron 0,373%, 0,096%, y 1,129% respectivamente. Las pruebas de campo fueron realizadas en el centro de neuro-rehabilitación SURGIR usando 3 fisioterapeutas quienes consideraron a la herramienta software NAOMOBBY como novedosos, fáciles de usar y que motiva a los pacientes a realizar la terapia física

NAOMOBBY, desarrollo de una herramienta software basada en visión por computador y robótica para apoyar la rehabilitación en terapias físicas de miembros superiores

Nowadays, 21% of Colombian population, and the 35% of the population in Cauca Valley have limited movement of body, arms, hands or legs. Then, the quality of life of these people is highly affected, since they have limitations in daily living activities. Physical rehabilitation therapies allow the restoration of movement and maximum functional capacity in people. Successful physical therapies depend on empathy and motivation with the rehabilitation process (RP), then the more empathy of patients with the RP, the more patient willingness regarding the rehabilitation therapy. Motivation is crucial in rehabilitation, and it is used as a fundamental rehabilitation out-come. This work has the aim to present the software tool called NAOMOBBY to support physical rehabilitation therapies of shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. NAOMOBBY includes a GUI for therapist, a Kinect sensor and an interactive humanoid robot NAO to increase the patient willingness regarding the RP. NAOMOBBY includes the following modules: configuration/management, movement reproduction, and results report using GAS methodology. NAOMOBBY was tested using quantitative and field tests. Quantitative tests measure the error in the Kinect sensor of the NAO robot joint motions to bring users a suitable feedback. Quantitative results were obtained using three basic functional motions. The mean square error for these three motions were 0,373%, 0,096%, and 1,129% respectively. Field tests were conducted at the SURGIR neuro-rehabilitation center using 3 physiotherapists who considered the NAOMOBBY software tool as a novel, easy to use, and that encourage patients to perform the physical therapy.Actualmente, el 21% de la población en Colombia y el 35% de la población del Valle del Cauca tiene limitaciones en el movimiento del cuerpo, brazos, manos o piernas. Entonces, la calidad de vida de estas personas está altamente afectado, ya que ellas tienen limitaciones al desarrollar actividades del diario vivir. La rehabilitación a través de la terapia física, permite la restauración del movimiento y la máxima capacidad funcional en las personas. Terapias físicas exitosas dependen de la empatía y motivación con el proceso de rehabilitación (PR), entonces entre más alta la empatía de los pacientes con el PR, más alta la disposición será de los pacientes en relación con la terapia de rehabilitación. Motivación es crucial en rehabilitación, y es usado como un resultado determinante de la rehabilitación. Este trabajo tiene el objetivo de presentar la herramienta software llamada NAOMOBBY para soportar las terapias de rehabilitación física de las articulaciones de hombro, codo y muñeca. NAOMOBBY incluye una GUI para terapeutas, un sensor Kinect y un robot interactivo humanoide NAO con el fin de incrementar la disposición del paciente hacia el PR. NAOMOBBY incluye los siguientes módulos: configuración y gestión, reproducción de movimiento y reporte de resultados usando la metodología GAS. NAOMOBBY fue probada usando pruebas cuantitativas y de campo. Las pruebas cuantitativas miden el error en el sensor Kinect de los movimientos de las articulaciones del robot NAO, con el fin de brindar a los usuarios una adecuada realimentación. Los resultados cuantitativos fueron obtenidos usando tres movimientos funcionales básicos. Los errores cuadráticos medios de estos tres movimientos fueron 0,373%, 0,096%, y 1,129% respectivamente. Las pruebas de campo fueron realizadas en el centro de neuro-rehabilitación SURGIR usando 3 fisioterapeutas quienes consideraron a la herramienta software NAOMOBBY como novedosos, fáciles de usar y que motiva a los pacientes a realizar la terapia física

NAOMOBBY, desarrollo de una herramienta software basada en visión por computador y robótica para apoyar la rehabilitación en terapias físicas de miembros superiores

Nowadays, 21% of Colombian population, and the 35% of the population in Cauca Valley have limited movement of body, arms, hands or legs. Then, the quality of life of these people is highly affected, since they have limitations in daily living activities. Physical rehabilitation therapies allow the restoration of movement and maximum functional capacity in people. Successful physical therapies depend on empathy and motivation with the rehabilitation process (RP), then the more empathy of patients with the RP, the more patient willingness regarding the rehabilitation therapy. Motivation is crucial in rehabilitation, and it is used as a fundamental rehabilitation out-come. This work has the aim to present the software tool called NAOMOBBY to support physical rehabilitation therapies of shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. NAOMOBBY includes a GUI for therapist, a Kinect sensor and an interactive humanoid robot NAO to increase the patient willingness regarding the RP. NAOMOBBY includes the following modules: configuration/management, movement reproduction, and results report using GAS methodology. NAOMOBBY was tested using quantitative and field tests. Quantitative tests measure the error in the Kinect sensor of the NAO robot joint motions to bring users a suitable feedback. Quantitative results were obtained using three basic functional motions. The mean square error for these three motions were 0,373%, 0,096%, and 1,129% respectively. Field tests were conducted at the SURGIR neuro-rehabilitation center using 3 physiotherapists who considered the NAOMOBBY software tool as a novel, easy to use, and that encourage patients to perform the physical therapy.Actualmente, el 21% de la población en Colombia y el 35% de la población del Valle del Cauca tiene limitaciones en el movimiento del cuerpo, brazos, manos o piernas. Entonces, la calidad de vida de estas personas está altamente afectado, ya que ellas tienen limitaciones al desarrollar actividades del diario vivir. La rehabilitación a través de la terapia física, permite la restauración del movimiento y la máxima capacidad funcional en las personas. Terapias físicas exitosas dependen de la empatía y motivación con el proceso de rehabilitación (PR), entonces entre más alta la empatía de los pacientes con el PR, más alta la disposición será de los pacientes en relación con la terapia de rehabilitación. Motivación es crucial en rehabilitación, y es usado como un resultado determinante de la rehabilitación. Este trabajo tiene el objetivo de presentar la herramienta software llamada NAOMOBBY para soportar las terapias de rehabilitación física de las articulaciones de hombro, codo y muñeca. NAOMOBBY incluye una GUI para terapeutas, un sensor Kinect y un robot interactivo humanoide NAO con el fin de incrementar la disposición del paciente hacia el PR. NAOMOBBY incluye los siguientes módulos: configuración y gestión, reproducción de movimiento y reporte de resultados usando la metodología GAS. NAOMOBBY fue probada usando pruebas cuantitativas y de campo. Las pruebas cuantitativas miden el error en el sensor Kinect de los movimientos de las articulaciones del robot NAO, con el fin de brindar a los usuarios una adecuada realimentación. Los resultados cuantitativos fueron obtenidos usando tres movimientos funcionales básicos. Los errores cuadráticos medios de estos tres movimientos fueron 0,373%, 0,096%, y 1,129% respectivamente. Las pruebas de campo fueron realizadas en el centro de neuro-rehabilitación SURGIR usando 3 fisioterapeutas quienes consideraron a la herramienta software NAOMOBBY como novedosos, fáciles de usar y que motiva a los pacientes a realizar la terapia física

Socially Assistive Robots for Older Adults and People with Autism: An Overview

Over one billion people in the world suffer from some form of disability. Nevertheless, according to the World Health Organization, people with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to deficiencies in services, such as health care, rehabilitation, support, and assistance. In this sense, recent technological developments can mitigate these deficiencies, offering less-expensive assistive systems to meet users’ needs. This paper reviews and summarizes the research efforts toward the development of these kinds of systems, focusing on two social groups: older adults and children with autism.This research was funded by the Spanish Government TIN2016-76515-R grant for the COMBAHO project, supported with Feder funds. It has also been supported by Spanish grants for PhD studies ACIF/2017/243 and FPU16/00887

Intelligent Dolls and robots for the treatment of elderly people with dementia

Doll and robot are effective and beneficial non-pharmacological therapies applied in different clinical settings. Doll therapy (DT), principally based in Bowlby's attachment theory, uses an empathy or lifelike baby doll to conduct caring behaviors of it. Robot therapies (RT) use care robots with a friendly attitude and appearance that create emotions and movements that lead to different verbal, motor and emotional reactions. Both DT and RT are person-centred therapies that aim to improve wellbeing of people that suffer from different neurological, psychological and mental health disorders, such as Alzheimer's Disease, autism spectrum disorder, stress or depression, by providing a realistic experience. In this paper, the characteristics of both therapies, their benefits and the possibilities of innovation in the therapeutic field are presented

Robot mediated communication: Enhancing tele-presence using an avatar

In the past few years there has been a lot of development in the field of tele-presence. These developments have caused tele-presence technologies to become easily accessible and also for the experience to be enhanced. Since tele-presence is not only used for tele-presence assisted group meetings but also in some forms of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), these activities have also been facilitated. One of the lingering issues has to do with how to properly transmit presence of non-co-located members to the rest of the group. Using current commercially available tele-presence technology it is possible to exhibit a limited level of social presence but no physical presence. In order to cater for this lack of presence a system is implemented here using tele-operated robots as avatars for remote team members and had its efficacy tested. This testing includes both the level of presence that can be exhibited by robot avatars but also how the efficacy of these robots for this task changes depending on the morphology of the robot. Using different types of robots, a humanoid robot and an industrial robot arm, as tele-presence avatars, it is found that the humanoid robot using an appropriate control system is better at exhibiting a social presence. Further, when compared to a voice only scenario, both robots proved significantly better than with only voice in terms of both cooperative task solving and social presence. These results indicate that using an appropriate control system, a humanoid robot can be better than an industrial robot in these types of tasks and the validity of aiming for a humanoid design behaving in a human-like way in order to emulate social interactions that are closer to human norms. This has implications for the design of autonomous socially interactive robot systems

Design for Child-Robot Play The implications of Design Research within the field of Human-Robot Interaction studies for Children

This thesis investigates the intersections of three disciplines, that are Design Research, Human-Robot Interaction studies, and Child Studies. In particular, this doctoral research is focused on two research questions, namely, what is (or might be) the role of design research in HRI? And, how to design acceptable and desirable child-robot play applications? The first chapter introduces an overview of the mutual interest between robotics and design that is at the basis of the research. On the one hand, the interest of design toward robotics is documented through some exemplary projects from artists and designers that speculate on the human-robot coexistence condition. Vice versa, the robotics interest toward design is documented by referring to some tracks of robotic conferences, scienti c workshops and robotics journals which focused on the design-robotics relationship. Finally, a brief description of the background conditions that characterized this doctoral research are introduced, such as the fact of being a research founded by a company. The second chapter provides an overview of the state of the art of the intersections between three multidisciplinary disciplines. First, a de nition of Design Research is provided, together with its main trends and open issues. Then, the review focuses on the contribution of Design Research to the HRI eld, which can be summed up in actions focused on three aspects: artefacts, stakeholders, and contexts. This is followed by a focus on the role of Design Research within the context of children studies, in which it is possible to identify two main design-child relationships: design as a method for developing children’s learning experiences; and children as part of the design process for developing novel interactive systems. The third chapter introduces the Research through Design (RtD) approach and its relevance in conducting design research in HRI. The proposed methodology, based on this approach, is particularly characterized by the presence of design explorations as study methods. These, in turn, are developed through a common project’s methodology, also reported in this chapter. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the scenario in which the child-robot interaction takes place. This was aimed at understanding what is edutainment robotics for children, its common features, how it relates to existing children play types, and where the interaction takes place. The chapter provides also a focus on the relationship between children and technology on a more general level, through which two themes and relative design opportunities were identi ed: physically active play and objects-to-think-with. These were respectively addressed in the two design explorations presented in this thesis: Phygital Play and Shybo. The Phygital Play project consists of an exploration of natural interaction modalities with robots, through mixed-reality, for fostering children’s active behaviours. To this end, a game platform was developed for allowing children to play with or against a robot, through body movement. Shybo, instead, is a low-anthropomorphic robot for playful learning activities with children that can be carried out in educational contexts. The robot, which reacts to properties of the physical environment, is designed to support different kinds of experiences. Then, the chapter eight is dedicated to the research outcomes, that were de ned through a process of reflection. The contribution of the research was analysed and documented by focusing on three main levels, namely: artefact, knowledge and theory. The artefact level corresponds to the situated implementations developed through the projects. The knowledge level consists of a set of actionable principles, emerged from the results and lessons learned from the projects. At the theory level, a theoretical framework was proposed with the aim of informing the future design of child- robot play applications. Thelastchapterprovidesa naloverviewofthe doctoral research, a series of limitations regarding the research, its process and its outcomes, and some indications for future research

A Retro-Projected Robotic Head for Social Human-Robot Interaction

As people respond strongly to faces and facial features, both con- sciously and subconsciously, faces are an essential aspect of social robots. Robotic faces and heads until recently belonged to one of the following categories: virtual, mechatronic or animatronic. As an orig- inal contribution to the field of human-robot interaction, I present the R-PAF technology (Retro-Projected Animated Faces): a novel robotic head displaying a real-time, computer-rendered face, retro-projected from within the head volume onto a mask, as well as its driving soft- ware designed with openness and portability to other hybrid robotic platforms in mind. The work constitutes the first implementation of a non-planar mask suitable for social human-robot interaction, comprising key elements of social interaction such as precise gaze direction control, facial ex- pressions and blushing, and the first demonstration of an interactive video-animated facial mask mounted on a 5-axis robotic arm. The LightHead robot, a R-PAF demonstrator and experimental platform, has demonstrated robustness both in extended controlled and uncon- trolled settings. The iterative hardware and facial design, details of the three-layered software architecture and tools, the implementation of life-like facial behaviours, as well as improvements in social-emotional robotic communication are reported. Furthermore, a series of evalua- tions present the first study on human performance in reading robotic gaze and another first on user’s ethnic preference towards a robot face