Social Robot

The Navel robot

The Navel robot is designed to form meaningful bonds with humans. Its childlike and friendly design along with the expressive digital eyes, speech and facial recognition make it an excellent robot to form bonds with humans. However it's childlike appearance may cause a lack of faith in the robot's capabilities in a kitchen environment. It also does not offer a built-in touchscreen, limiting its use as a recipe selecting device.

The Nao

The Nao robot is a lightweight, small robot. It can easily be moved from one part of the kitchen to the other. It is fully programmable and offers a lot of freedom in the implementation. However, just as for the Navel robot, it's childlike appearance may cause a lack of faith in the robot's capabilities in a kitchen environment, and it also does not offer a built-in touchscreen, limiting its use as a recipe selecting device. Its small size can also be tricky to use as the robot must position itself in a way where it can see the cooking progress.

The MiRo-E

The MiRo-E robot makes an excellent companion with its disarming biomorphic appearance. It's lack of screen and limited camera functionality make it a poor fit for a cooking environment.

The Pepper robot

The pepper robot was chosen due to multiple reasons. Its chest-mounted touchscreen provides an excellent display for showing recipes and the steps that need to be taken. It also offers an excellent tool for selecting recipes by allowing the user to scroll through them. Since the robot serves as a cooking assistant, the PwD needs to trust the robot to understand safety. Its height and appearance are most adult-like when compared against the other robots, making it more likely to be trusted in the kitchen. The wheeled base and multiple cameras allow the pepper robot to move around the kitchen and keep an eye on the cooking progress. Its gesture recognition capabilities could prove useful when monitoring cooking steps. See the table below for a comprehensive comparison between the Navel, Pepper, Nao, and MiRo-E robots.

Comparison Table