Towards Social HRI for Improving Children's Healthcare Experiences

TL;DR

This research aims to develop an autonomous social robot using epistemic planning to improve children's experiences during medical procedures, involving co-design and clinical evaluation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel autonomous social robot system employing epistemic planning for flexible, safe interactions in pediatric healthcare settings.

Findings

Prototype robot with social capabilities developed

Initial feasibility demonstrated in clinical environments

Plans for comprehensive clinical evaluation

Abstract

This paper describes a new research project that aims to develop a social robot designed to help children cope with painful and distressing medical procedures in a clinical setting. While robots have previously been trialled for this task, with promising initial results, the systems have tended to be teleoperated, limiting their flexibility and robustness. This project will use epistemic planning techniques as a core component for action selection in the robot system, in order to generate plans that include physical, sensory, and social actions for interacting with humans. The robot will operate in a task environment where appropriate and safe interaction with children, parents/caregivers, and healthcare professionals is required. In addition to addressing the core technical challenge of building an autonomous social robot, the project will incorporate co-design techniques involving all participant groups, and the final robot system will be evaluated in a two-site clinical trial.