Humanoid robot Marko - an assistant in therapy for children

Abstract

This paper reports on work in progress towards development of a robot to be used as assistive technology in treatment of children with developmental disorders (cerebral palsy). This work integrates two activities. The first one is mechanical device design (humanoid robot) of sufficient capabilities for demonstration of therapeutical exercises for habilitation of gross and fine motor functions and for acquiring spatial relationships. The second one is design of appropriate communication capabilities of the robot. The basic therapeutical role of the robot is to motivate children to practice therapy harder and longer. To achieve this, robot must fulfil two requirements: it must have appropriate appearance to be able to establish affective attachment of the child to the robot, and must be able to communicate with children verbally (speech recognition and synthesis,) and non-verbally (facial expressions, gestures...). Thus, conversational abilities are unavoidable and among the most important capabilities. In short, robot should be able to manage three-party natural language conversation – between the child, the therapist and the robot – in clinical settings.