Humanoid Robot

As described in objectives, our goal is to give patients with dementia the autonomy and capability to take walks on their own, whenever they want. Three robots were made available to help us in achieving this goal: NAO, Pepper and MiRo. Our considerations are written below.

Although Nao is a cute, humanoid robot which could allow for nice interactions with our patients, it can only move by walking on its small robot legs. As our main goal is to facilitate walks, this robot did not seem suitable as its walking speed is low and it is likely to fall over with small bumps.

Pepper is a larger humanoid robot with wheels, therefore not having the same problem NAO has. It has fully movable arms and a tablet on its chest, allowing for detailed interactions including gestures and user input. Although these features are nice, they are not required for our goal. These features also mean that Pepper is quite large, taking up a lot of space in each room or corridor.

Next to their unsuitability for taking walks, the abovementioned humanoid robots also have facial features and movements which lie in the uncanny valley (Mori et al., 2012). This may cause unexpected modals of interaction with the robot that cannot be accounted for. 

Miro, on the other hand, is a small robot dog with wheels. We ultimately chose MiRo because it has all the necessary features to facilitate walks, without any downsides. Next to this, a dog is automatically associated with taking a walk. Also, the robot dog has dog like features, allowing it to respond to touch, make noises and move certain parts to resemble a dog.  Its dog-like appearance and its ability to act like a dog will allow the dog to become a companion. By allowing the user to go on fun walks, responding to personalised voice commands and responding positively to the patients' touch, it will become a trusted friend. More information and research on why MiRo is suitable for our goal can be found in Robotic partner