Toward Soft, Robust Robots for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

meltdown is one of the most challenging behaviors of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), where a child could not calm down or too overwhelmed with a certain situation. Because social robots are becoming useful as a therapy tool between the therapist and a child with ASD, as robot designers, we want to anticipate that a robot could be thrown on the floor or to the therapist or caregiver. In addition, we want to investigate how to better protect the robot from being damaged. Typical robots are constructed in plastic material. In this paper, a sample of plastic material and a sample of silicone material were compared in a drop test experiment at the heights of 0.0254 m, 0.5 m, and 1 m. These heights simulate a possible situation where the robot can be dropped. Our result shows the differences in the impact between the silicone and the plastic samples. This work provides a baseline study as a step toward soft, robust robots for children with ASD.

[1]  Lauren M. Schmitt,et al.  The Clinical Use of Robots for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Critical Review. , 2012, Research in autism spectrum disorders.

[2]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot interaction , 2007, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[3]  Michael A. Goodrich,et al.  Detailed requirements for robots in autism therapy , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics.

[4]  Sarah N. Woods,et al.  Exploring the design space of robots: Children's perspectives , 2006, Interact. Comput..

[5]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Therapeutic and educational objectives in robot assisted play for children with autism , 2009, RO-MAN 2009 - The 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[6]  Philip Barker,et al.  The triad of impairment in autism revisited. , 2009, Journal of child and adolescent psychiatric nursing : official publication of the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurses, Inc.

[7]  François Michaud,et al.  Characteristics of mobile robotic toys for children with pervasive developmental disorders , 2003, SMC'03 Conference Proceedings. 2003 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. Conference Theme - System Security and Assurance (Cat. No.03CH37483).

[8]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Roles and functions of robots in human society: implications from research in autism therapy , 2003, Robotica.

[9]  Illah R. Nourbakhsh,et al.  A survey of socially interactive robots , 2003, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[10]  Rafael E. Banchs,et al.  The Path to Success: Failures in rEal Robots (FinE-R) , 2015, FinE-R@IROS.

[11]  Hideki Kozima,et al.  An epigenetic approach to human-robot communication , 2000, Proceedings 9th IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. IEEE RO-MAN 2000 (Cat. No.00TH8499).

[12]  Daniel J. Ricks,et al.  Trends and considerations in robot-assisted autism therapy , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[13]  Haizhou Li,et al.  Towards an Effective Design of Social Robots , 2011, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[14]  K. Dautenhahn,et al.  Towards interactive robots in autism therapy: background, motivation and challenges , 2004 .

[15]  T. Shibata,et al.  Engaging with artificial pets , 2005 .

[16]  C. Heyes,et al.  Intact automatic imitation of human and robot actions in autism spectrum disorders , 2007, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[17]  François Michaud,et al.  Mobile Robots Engaging Children in Learning , 2007 .

[18]  Kerstin Dautenhahn,et al.  Eliciting Requirements for a Robotic Toy for Children with Autism - Results from User Panels , 2007, RO-MAN 2007 - The 16th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[19]  H. Kozima,et al.  Children-robot interaction: a pilot study in autism therapy. , 2007, Progress in brain research.

[20]  Brian Scassellati,et al.  How Social Robots Will Help Us to Diagnose, Treat, and Understand Autism , 2005, ISRR.