A new emotional robot assistant that facilitates human interaction and persuasion

Jaime Andres Rincon, Ângelo Costa, Paulo Novais, Vicente Julián, Carlos Carrascosa

Abstract: The development of robots that are truly sociable requires understanding how human interactions can be applied to the interaction between humans and robots. A sociable robot must be able to interact with people taking into account aspects like verbal and non-verbal communications (emotions, postures, gestures). This work presents a social robot which main goal is to provide assistance to older people in carrying out their daily activities (through suggestions or reminders). In addition, the robot presents non-verbal communications like perceiving emotions and displaying human identifiable emotions in order to express empathy. A prototype of the robot is being tested in a daycare center in the northern area of Portugal.