Service personalisation of assistive robot for autism care

Abstract

This paper demonstrates an innovative application in the context of autism using a Humanoid robot. A nine-month long home-based care trial with 191 hours of interaction is conducted to investigate the engagement with two young people with autism through adaptation on service design (e.g., change from narrative voice to more interactive story telling using emotion expressions, sounds effects and background music) and service personalization (service novelty). It involves big data collected to learn the participants' preferences and activity patterns. The experimental evidence on how to improve the long-term benefits of use of social robots is reported. The research establishes that in home-based care a Humanoid robot can maintain their engagement with young people with autism through service personalization over long periods of time.