Application of Social Robots in Healthcare: Review on Characteristics, Requirements, Technical Solutions

Cyber-physical or virtual systems or devices that are capable of autonomously interacting with human or non-human agents in real environments are referred to as social robots. The primary areas of application for biomedical technology are nursing homes, hospitals, and private homes for the purpose of providing assistance to the elderly, people with disabilities, children, and medical personnel. This review examines the current state-of-the-art of social robots used in healthcare applications, with a particular emphasis on the technical characteristics and requirements of these different types of systems. Humanoids robots, companion robots, and telepresence robots are the three primary categories of devices that are identified and discussed in this article. The research looks at commercial applications, as well as scientific literature (according to the Scopus Elsevier database), patent analysis (using the Espacenet search engine), and more (searched with Google search engine). A variety of devices are enumerated and categorized, and then our discussion and organization of their respective specifications takes place.

Recent Advances in Bipedal Walking Robots: Review of Gait, Drive, Sensors and Control Systems

Currently, there is an intensive development of bipedal walking robots. The most known solutions are based on the use of the principles of human gait created in nature during evolution. Modernbipedal robots are also based on the locomotion manners of birds. This review presents the current state of the art of bipedal walking robots based on natural bipedal movements (human and bird) as well as on innovative synthetic solutions. Firstly, an overview of the scientific analysis of human gait is provided as a basis for the design of bipedal robots. The full human gait cycle that consists of two main phases is analysed and the attention is paid to the problem of balance and stability, especially in the single support phase when the bipedal movement is unstable. The influences of passive or active gait on energy demand are also discussed. Most studies are explored based on the zero moment. Furthermore, a review of the knowledge on the specific locomotor characteristics of birds, whose kinematics are derived from dinosaurs and provide them with both walking and running abilities, is presented. Secondly, many types of bipedal robot solutions are reviewed, which include nature-inspired robots (human-like and birdlike robots) and innovative robots using new heuristic, synthetic ideas for locomotion. Totally 45 robotic solutions are gathered by thebibliographic search method. Atlas was mentioned as one of the most perfect human-like robots, while the birdlike robot cases were Cassie and Digit. Innovative robots are presented, such asslider robot without knees, robots with rotating feet (3 and 4 degrees of freedom), and the hybrid robot Leo, which can walk on surfaces and fly. In particular, the paper describes in detail the robots' propulsion systems (electric, hydraulic), the structure of the lower limb (serial, parallel, mixed mechanisms), the types and structures of control and sensor systems, and the energy efficiency of the robots. Terrain roughness recognition systems using different sensor systems based on light detection and ranging or multiple cameras are introduced. A comparison of performance, control and sensor systems, drive systems, and achievements of known human-like and birdlike robots is provided. Thirdly, for the first time, the review comments on the future of bipedal robots in relation to the concepts of conventional (natural bipedal) and synthetic unconventional gait. We critically assess and compare prospective directions for further research that involve the development of navigation systems, artificial intelligence, collaboration with humans, areas for the development of bipedal robot applications in everyday life, therapy, and industry.

“Does cinema form the future of robotics?”: a survey on fictional robots in sci-fi movies

Abstract

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have always been among the most popular topics in science fiction (sci-fi) movies. This paper endeavors to review popular movies containing Fictional Robots (FR) to extract the most common characteristics and interesting design ideas of robots portrayed in science fiction. To this end, 134 sci-fi films, including 108 unique FRs, were investigated regarding the robots’ different design aspects (e.g., appearance design, interactive design and artificial intelligence, and ethical and social design). Also, in each section of this paper, some characteristics of FRs are compared with real social robots. Since some researches point to the significant role of the cinema in forming the community’s expectations, it is very important to consider these characteristics and differences in choosing the future pathway of robotics. As some examples of findings, we have found that unlike the non-metallic skins/covers of real social robots, most FRs are still covered by highly detailed metal components. Moreover, the FR ability of interactions are generally (more than 90%) shown to be similar or even more advanced than normal Human–Human interactions, and this milestone was achieved by ignoring the AI challenges of real HRI. On the other hand, the ethical aspects of movies do inspire us to consider the potential ethical aspects of real robot design. All in all, according to popularity of movies, studying FR could be a step toward more appropriate development of robotics and AI entities to be accepted by general users in the real world.

Highlights:

Social Robotics, Education, and Religion in the Islamic World: An Iranian Perspective

The social impact of robotics applied to domains such as education, religion, nursing, and therapy across the world depends on the level of technology as well as the culture in which it is used. By studying how robots are used in Iran, a technologically-savvy country with a long history and a rich culture, we explore their possible impact on interrelated areas of religious and ethical features in education in an Islamic society. To accomplish this task, a preliminary exploratory study was conducted using two social robots as teaching assistants in Islamic religion classes for 42 elementary students. More than 90% of the participants in the study absolutely preferred the robot-assisted religion class over one taught by a human. Building on the results from the students' viewpoints and exam scores, the acceptability and potential of using social robots in the education of Islamic religious concepts in Iran are further discussed in this paper.

Trust in and Ethical Design of Carebots: The Case for Ethics of Care

The paper has two main objectives: to examine the challenges arising from the use of carebots as well as to discuss how the design of carebots can deal with these challenges. First, it notes that the use of carebots to take care of the physical and mental health of the elderly, children and the disabled as well as to serve as assistive tools and social companions encounter a few main challenges. They relate to the extent of the care robots’ ability to care for humans, potential deception by robot morphology and communications, (over)reliance on or attachment to robots, and the risks of carebot use without informed consent and potential infringements of privacy. Secondly, these challenges impinge upon issues of ethics and trust which are somewhat overlapping in terms of concept and practice. The existing ethical guidelines, standards and regulations are general in nature and lack a central ethical framework and concrete principles applicable to the care contexts. Hence, to deal with these important challenges, it is proposed in the third part of the paper that carebots be designed by taking account of Ethics of Care as the central ethical framework. It argues that the Ethics of Care offer the following advantages: (a) it provides sufficiently concrete principles and embodies values that are sensitive and applicable to the design of carebots and the contexts of caring practices; (b) it coheres with the tenets of Principlism and select ethical theories (utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics); and (c) it is closely associated with the preservation and maintenance of trust.

Endowing a Robotic Tutor with Empathic Qualities: Design and Pilot Evaluation

As increasingly more research efforts are geared towards creating robots that can teach and interact with children in educational contexts, it has been speculated that endowing robots with artificial empathy may facilitate learning. In this paper, we provide a background to the concept of empathy, and how it factors into learning. We then present our approach to equipping a robotic tutor with several empathic qualities, describing the technical architecture and its components, a map-reading learning scenario developed for an interactive multitouch table, as well as the pedagogical and empathic strategies devised for the robot. We also describe the results of a pilot study comparing the robotic tutor with these empathic qualities against a version of the tutor without them. The pilot study was performed with 26 school children aged 10–11 at their school. Results revealed that children in the test condition indeed rated the robot as more empathic than children in the control condition. Moreover, we explored several related measures, such as relational status and learning effect, yet no other significant differences were found. We further discuss these results and provide insights into future directions.