The design of an interactive socially assistive robot for patient care

It is anticipated that the use of assistive robots will be one of the most important service applications of robotic systems of the future. In this paper, a unique non-contact socially assistive robot consisting of a human-like demeanor is presented for utilization in hospital wards and veteran homes to study its role and impact on the well-being of patients, addressing patient's needs and its overall effect on the quality of patient care. The robot will be an embodied entity that will participate in hands off non-contact social interaction with a patient during the convalescence, rehabilitation or end-of-life care stage. The robot has been designed as a platform to incorporate the three design parameters of embodiment, emotion and non-verbal dialog to encourage natural interactions between the patient and itself. For perception, we describe the first application of utilizing varying intensity depth imaginary, via a 3D camera, for non-contact and non-restricting 3D gesture recognition and characterization.