Evaluation of the Acceptance of a Social Assistive Robot for Physical Training Support Together with Older Users and Domain Experts

Abstract

According to recent studies a strength of socially assistive robots (SARs) is the ability to motivate users to perform tasks in a multimodal manner. Within this paper the evaluation of a SAR based prototype for support of physical therapy of older users at home is described. By performing a user study with a training system consisting of a social assistive robot (NAO) in combination with the Microsoft Kinect, the acceptance of human robot interaction (HRI) within the field of physical training as well as the impact on user motivation was evaluated. Results regarding motivational abilities of a SAR and the user acceptance towards the system are given.