An Alternative Approach for Developing Socially Assistive Robots

Abstract

This paper presents the design of the socially assistive companion robotic wheelchair named RoboChair. Unlike in most current companion robotics projects, the approach of RoboChair is not to build a completely new robotic device. Instead, the focus of the RoboChair project is to convert an already useful device (i.e. wheelchair) to a socially assistive companion robot. The authors argue that there are number of advantages in this approach. The proposed robotic chair is a mobile robot that can carry a person. It is equipped with several measuring devices for measuring vital signs. The robot chair is capable of engaging users with interactive dialogs through a touch screen and by using human-robot interaction techniques. It has a scalable modular software architecture so that adding new hardware and software modules is straightforward. The software frame- work is based on Robot Operating System (ROS) open source robotic middleware.