An Edge Computing Robot Experience for Automatic Elderly Mental Health Care Based on Voice

TL;DR

This paper presents an edge computing robot platform that interacts with elderly users via voice to assess mental health, enabling specialists to create and manage queries remotely for continuous clinical follow-up.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-language voice-interactive robot prototype on embedded hardware for elderly mental health assessment, with a web interface for specialists to customize queries.

Findings

Prototype successfully interacts in multiple languages.

Edge device filters environmental noise effectively.

Supports remote query creation and management.

Abstract

We need open platforms driven by specialists, in which queries can be created and collected for long periods and the diagnosis made, based on a rigorous clinical follow-up. In this work, we developed a multi-language robot interface helping to evaluate the mental health of seniors by interacting through questions. The specialist can propose questions, as well as to receive users' answers, in text form. The robot can automatically interact with the user using the appropriate language. It can process the answers and under the guidance of a specialist, questions and answers can be oriented towards the desired therapy direction. The prototype, was implemented on an embedded device meant for edge computing, thus it is able to filter environmental noise and can be placed anywhere at home. The experience is now available for specialists to create queries and answers through a Web-based interface.