Quick Prototyping of Companion Bots for Elderly People

Companion bots such as chatbots in cyberspace or robots in real space gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic as a means of comforting humans and reducing their loneliness. These bots can also help enhance the lives of elderly people. In this paper, we present how to design and implement a quick prototype of companion bots for elderly people. A companion bot named "Hello Steve" that is able to send emails, open YouTube to provide entertainment, and remember the times an elderly person must take medicine and remind them is designed and implemented as a quick prototype. In addition, the bot combines the features of a mobile robot and a chatbot. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the design through its very high accuracy when navigating mobile-robot-like tasks and responding to chatbot-like tasks via voice commands.