Lessons Learned from the Development of an Affordable Open-Source Based Humanoid Socially Assistive Robot

Abstract

Affordable elderly care has become a motivator for the development of low-cost and efficient healthcare related technologies. Among those technologies, multiple Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR) devices have been implemented as a possible solution on elderly care tasks. More robotic applications have also been implemented in order to monitoring human vitals and motion for those in need. A team of undergraduate students developed a SAR with the express intent to assist those in need of personal care. The Personal Assistance Humanoid Robot (PAR) combined not only the socially assistive capabilities of a SAR, but it also seeks to expand its capabilities into assisting with vitals and motion monitoring. The development of the PAR was crafted from functional open-source technologies. The student team was able to emulate and enhance existing platforms in a cost effective and simplified way, using fundamental academic and hands-on engineering principles. This document describes the process towards the development of an initial prototype PAR platform. It also documents structural and subsystem integration difficulties encountered through the assembly and implementation process. The scope of the prototype included the robot upper body with dynamic limbs, object recognition, object tracking, human gesture emulation, color and depth perception, auditory sensing, and pre-programmed verbal responses for social interaction.