Iva: A Playful Humanoid Robot with Educational Flare for Little Patients

Abstract

Traditional child patient care needs human workers, who are limited due wage shortage and other factors. Using technologies such as robotics may be a viable alternative as a care assistant to improve child patients’ wellbeing, especially when the UK government is encouraging robotics and artificial intelligence innovation. Literature found positive implications for the use of robotics for child patients, such as social humanoid robots providing emotional support and helping child patients reduce pain, which allows for more possibilities of using social humanoid robots to explore serving child patients. This research aims to develop an effective solution to entertain and comfort child patients who have been negatively impacted by the threatened and declining social care sector. The researchers introduced a new design of the robot - Iva: a playful humanoid robot with educational flare for little patients. Iva is based on the NAO robot’s hardware and equipped with various sensors and abilities, such as tactile sensors, facial detection and speech and object recognition, enabling it to interact with children through interactive activities. Iva can perform conversation, games, shows, exercises and more activities, based on the thinking of the child patients’ needs and preferences, forms of expression and programming workflow. The whole process emphasised user friendliness and ethical considerations, including data privacy and informed consent. The design, development and testing have been conducted in the novel EUREKA Tokku Zone to ensure ethical integrity. Preliminary testing in a laboratory setting shows all the functions of Iva work correctly for providing multiple interesting activities to let child patients play and relax. In terms of Iva’s performance, she is a meaningful robot that contributes to a more positive and supportive environment for children during hospitalisation. Future work contains improvements of Iva’s program for a more accessible experience, and the test in the real hospital setting within the Tokku Zones in Wales.