Abstract
Social isolation is an increasingly felt problem in the elderly population and can significantly affect life quality. This paper describes the development process of a social robot that helps socialization among the elderly. The applied process consists of 5 main steps: desktop and literature research, user field research (observation and expert interviews), opportunity definition, and solution conceptualization, followed by a prototype development phase and a user tests phase. As a result, a companion robot called TIP (Therapy for Isolated People) was developed to help seniors participate in socializing activities by building a stable social network.
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Acknowledgements
The project was developed by Giada Francescato, Ramiro Argañaraz, Francesco Argentino, Sara Ceccato, Giulia Patellaro and Gianmarco Poggiana. Authors would like to thank Roberta Pandolfo, the San Lorenzo Service Center and the group of elderly people. We would also thank Francesco Baldassarra.
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Francescato, G., Romero, M., Borga, G. (2021). Development of a Robotic Agent for Increasing Elderlies Socialization. In: Malvezzi, M., Alimisis, D., Moro, M. (eds) Education in & with Robotics to Foster 21st-Century Skills. EDUROBOTICS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 982. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77022-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77022-8_10
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