Software interface design for home-based assistive multi-robot system

Abstract

In many assistive robotic systems, the interface to the user is simply a tablet computer or a monitor attached to a single robot. Missing from approaches are the system extensibility made possible with a tablet computer and a division of work between multiple agents. In this paper we present the design for a software interface to connect users to an assistive robot system for the disabled and elderly. The system is comprised of heterogeneous low-cost assistive robots, a home management portal and a cloud computing backend. The system is designed with the premise that all components do not need to be present for the system to function, but it will be improved when expanded by addition of robots and expanded computing capabilities. This paper focuses on developing the interfaces necessary to connect the user to these systems in a simple and easy to comprehend manner for the target user population.