Individual Squash Training is More Effective and Social with a Humanoid Robotic Coach^*

Abstract

With the aim of providing extra motivation to adhere to repetitive, individual sports training, this paper presents an autonomous robotic squash coach capable of high-level personalisation. The system was evaluated in person with 16 participants each conducting three 15-minute solo practice sessions. We compared a baseline, non-coaching robotic condition to two conditions in which the robot executed one of 12 different coaching policies, each of which was based on human coaching data. In one of the coaching conditions, the policy was selected based on categories for personalisation and in the other it was selected randomly among policies. The coaching policy conditions were found to be more enjoyable, more socially competent, and perceived as a more effective coach than the baseline.