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MobiKa - Low-Cost Mobile Robot for Human-Robot Interaction

Florenz Graf, Çağatay Odabaşı, Theo Jacobs, Birgit Graf, Thomas Födisch

TL;DR

This work tackles the need for affordable at-home service robots to support elderly and rehabilitation patients. It presents MobiKa, a low-cost mobile robot with a height-adjustable tablet for multimodal HRI, and a novel dynamic pose search strategy that selects robot poses around a user within interaction range. The contributions include a hardware/software design based on open-source platforms, a multi-cost HRI pose scoring method, and experiments in laboratory and real care-home settings showing robust navigation, safe approaching behavior, and positive user interactions. The results demonstrate that a low-cost platform can provide reliable navigation, adaptable interaction, and meaningful engagement for elderly care, with potential for commercialization and extension to other robots.

Abstract

One way to allow elderly people to stay longer in their homes is to use of service robots to support them with everyday tasks. With this goal, we design, develop and evaluate a low-cost mobile robot to communicate with elderly people. The main idea is to create an affordable communication assistant robot which is optimized for multimodal Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Our robot can navigate autonomously through dynamic environments using a new algorithm to calculate poses for approaching persons. The robot was tested in a real life scenario in an elderly care home.

MobiKa - Low-Cost Mobile Robot for Human-Robot Interaction

TL;DR

This work tackles the need for affordable at-home service robots to support elderly and rehabilitation patients. It presents MobiKa, a low-cost mobile robot with a height-adjustable tablet for multimodal HRI, and a novel dynamic pose search strategy that selects robot poses around a user within interaction range. The contributions include a hardware/software design based on open-source platforms, a multi-cost HRI pose scoring method, and experiments in laboratory and real care-home settings showing robust navigation, safe approaching behavior, and positive user interactions. The results demonstrate that a low-cost platform can provide reliable navigation, adaptable interaction, and meaningful engagement for elderly care, with potential for commercialization and extension to other robots.

Abstract

One way to allow elderly people to stay longer in their homes is to use of service robots to support them with everyday tasks. With this goal, we design, develop and evaluate a low-cost mobile robot to communicate with elderly people. The main idea is to create an affordable communication assistant robot which is optimized for multimodal Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Our robot can navigate autonomously through dynamic environments using a new algorithm to calculate poses for approaching persons. The robot was tested in a real life scenario in an elderly care home.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 22 sections, 6 equations, 6 figures, 1 algorithm.

Table of Contents

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. RELATED WORK
  3. ROBOT DESIGN
  4. Hardware Design
  5. Software Design
  6. Software Structure
  7. Virtual Model
  8. Navigation
  9. APPROACHING A HUMAN
  10. Defining Search Area
  11. Calculating Costs
  12. Costmap Cost
  13. Path Planning Cost
  14. Distance Cost
  15. Angle Error Cost
  16. ...and 7 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: MobiKa is interacting with a sitting human
  • Figure 2: Different use cases of MobiKa. Thanks to its adjustable tablet height MobiKa can interact with the people while they are standing, sitting and laying (e.g. after a fall).
  • Figure 3: Different stages of costs for HRI visualized on the gridmap
  • Figure 4: Gridmap with HRI poses
  • Figure 5: Final Pose of the Robot in Relation to the Human
  • ...and 1 more figures