Design and System Validation of Rassle: A Novel Active Socially Assistive Robot for Elderly with Dementia

Abstract

The population around the globe is aging rapidly. People are living longer due to an increase in life expectancy and less young people become available to help the elderly population. Therefore, elderly people are facing functional and mental declines that affect their everyday activities and quality of life. Emergence of Socially Assistive Robots (SAR) in recent years and application of animal-like SARs in particular for elder care have shown positive effects including reduced stress, improved communication and social interaction among older adults. However, the existing animal-like SARs are generally passive and limited in terms of gesture-based interaction while the existing humanoid SARs have hard exteriors that prevent them from being in close proximity to the people to have touch-based interaction. In this paper, we have designed and developed a novel active SAR, Rassle, with whole body tactile sensing and movable limbs to take full advantage of touch-based interactions with older adults. Touching can create social bonding and it involves upper limb movement. We believe Rassle can encourage gross motor activity and deliver mental stimuli during interaction. In addition, we have conducted a system validation study with twelve unimpaired adults. Experimental results demonstrate Rassle's ability to deliver mental stimuli with a variety of difficulty levels and show that subjects enjoyed interacting with Rassle.