Development and Evaluation of a Meal Partner Robot Platform

Abstract

Eating with others enriches our lives and has many positive effects. However, numerous people are forced to eat alone in the current COVID-19 pandemic situation. We think that robots that exist with bodies and can be interacted with in real time can be good mealtime partners. In this study, we developed a meal partner robot platform called Mamoru’21, which can share eating behavior. We experimented to evaluate Mamoru’21. The results showed that Mamoru’21 could make eating more enjoyable than a conventional communication robot. We also investigated the preferable appearance of a meal partner robot and confirmed that Mamoru’21 met the requirements.