Recent developments on social robots and imitation learning for robotic therapy

• Main Author: Ompico, C.D. S.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Robotics in medicine; Robots—Therapeutic use; Personal robotics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/13835
• Institution: De La Salle University

The development of social robots has been notably increasing and gaining popularity in recent times. These are also being integrated into healthcare systems, as a means to accompany patients, provide mental health therapy, and entertainment in place of direct human intervention. This paper discusses the recent developments on imitation learning for robot therapy in the field of social robotics to gain knowledge about the importance of this approach as an alternative solution to mental health therapy. The integration of robots to the mental healthcare system is known as robot therapy, which is used as a substitute for animal assisted therapy. Therapy that makes use of animals has been proven to be effective in dealing with mental disorders. However, there are risks such as allergic reactions, bites, and scratches that come with animal assisted therapy, but not robot therapy. The goal for developing robots for this is to make them seem almost life-like--has a way of thinking and emotions. For this to happen, humanoids are being programmed to appear human-like. A solution for this is imitation learning, which is a way for machines to learn, not only tasks, but responses in certain situations, only by observing and imitating humans in an environment.