Social Media Intermediation Robot for Elderly People Using External Cloud-Based Services

Abstract

Most of the existing elderly people watching services are belonging to the service category of a confirmation of elderly people's safety based on one-way communication from elderly people. Therefore, we propose a Social Media Intermediation Robot used for the interactive communication between elderly people and younger generation via existing social media. This robot system has been implemented on a single board computer embedded in a human-type robot, which is equipped with a microphone, camera, speaker, sensors, and network access function, so that elderly people can retrieve and transmit information by voice via social media without using smart phones. We made clear a human interaction-type user interface, which enables elderly people to have communication just like talking with a receptionist. We also designed the Social Media Intermediation Robot based on the service-oriented architecture that enables us easily to use open innovation like external cloud-based services. We developed the prototype system. Then, we confirmed the effectiveness of the prototype system in the viewpoints of user interface and system availability from the perspective of the total system performance including external cloud-based services.