Therabot - a Robot Therapy Support System
Description:
Technology Overview
A therapy support robot designed to aid patients
Background
A character robot is a social or entertainment robot with which an individual has at least some moral or ethical sense or connection. The robot of discussion appears as biological, expresses itself clearly, well-animated and has a recognizable personality.
Technology Description
This invention purposes a prototype of a robotic therapy support tool, known as a Therabot.
Whilst there have been many attempts of therapy robots, they all lack emotional connection, entertainment value, security, companionship, and so this invention aims to provide a robot prototype that is a companion and aims to directly interact and spend time with a person in order to create strong social bonds. Additionally, this robot does valuable work without a reward and so the individual has some more/ethical connection to the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) community.
The research project that aimed to investigate the form, factor, covering and functionality needed for the design and development of the Therabot aims to measure physiological states to determine stress levels of the client during counseling sessions for use in home therapy practice. This is to help provide supportive movements to help calm the client through physical actions and record counseling sessions for later playback by the client to aid home therapy practices. The results from a 3-part web based survey collection that indicated the preferred Therabot was a floppy-eared dog with coloring of a St-Bernard.
Benefits
Emotional support tool for clients