A Spoken Dialogue robot, Named Wonder, to Aid Senior Citizens Who living Alone with Communication

Abstract

In an aging society, many kinds of welfare apparatus have been developed with highly sophisticated technology in order to support seniors and their helpers physically. But mental care is also very important because Japanese seniors living alone are rather reluctant to participate in their local community. We have designed an information system using robotic pets terminal controlled by PC which can communicate with the seniors. It includes speech recognition, multi-modal dialogue control and telecommunication software. In this system, one can deliver daily information through the pets from a distant place such as local government office or welfare institution. At the same time, one can also watch safety of their lives without intruding their privacy. Now, we carried out an field experiment in Ikeda City, Osaka. And we evaluated our system at a welfare institution and confirmed its effectiveness.