Larriba Ferran, Raya Cristóbal, Angulo Cecilio, Albo-Canals Jordi, Díaz Marta, Boldú Roger
Automatic Control Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Pau Gargallo 5, 08028, Barcelona, Spain.
La Salle BCN, Universitat Ramon Llull, Quatre Camins, 08022, Barcelona, Spain.
Biomed Eng Online. 2016 Jul 15;15 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):72. doi: 10.1186/s12938-016-0180-3.
This PATRICIA research project is about using pet robots to reduce pain and anxiety in hospitalized children. The study began 2 years ago and it is believed that the advances made in this project are significant. Patients, parents, nurses, psychologists, and engineers have adopted the Pleo robot, a baby dinosaur robotic pet, which works in different ways to assist children during hospitalization.
Focus is spent on creating a wireless communication system with the Pleo in order to help the coordinator, who conducts therapy with the child, monitor, understand, and control Pleo's behavior at any moment. This article reports how this technological function is being developed and tested.
Wireless communication between the Pleo and an Android device is achieved. The developed Android app allows the user to obtain any state of the robot without stopping its interaction with the patient. Moreover, information is sent to a cloud, so that robot moods, states and interactions can be shared among different robots.
Pleo attachment was successful for more than 1 month, working with children in therapy, which makes the investment capable of positive therapeutic possibilities. This technical improvement in the Pleo addresses two key issues in social robotics: needing an enhanced response to maintain the attention and engagement of the child, and using the system as a platform to collect the states of the child's progress for clinical purposes.
“帕特里夏”（PATRICIA）研究项目旨在利用宠物机器人减轻住院儿童的疼痛和焦虑。该研究始于两年前，据信该项目已取得重大进展。患者、家长、护士、心理学家和工程师都采用了普乐（Pleo）机器人，这是一种恐龙宝宝机器人宠物，它以不同方式在儿童住院期间提供帮助。
重点在于创建一个与普乐机器人的无线通信系统，以便协助儿童进行治疗的协调员能够随时监测、理解并控制普乐的行为。本文报告了这一技术功能的开发和测试情况。
实现了普乐机器人与安卓设备之间的无线通信。开发的安卓应用程序允许用户在不中断机器人与患者互动的情况下获取机器人的任何状态。此外，信息会发送到云端，以便不同机器人之间能够共享机器人的情绪、状态和互动情况。
普乐机器人陪伴儿童进行治疗超过1个月，效果良好，这使得该项投资具备积极的治疗潜力。普乐机器人的这一技术改进解决了社交机器人领域的两个关键问题：需要增强响应以保持儿童的注意力和参与度，以及将该系统作为一个平台来收集儿童治疗进展情况以供临床使用。
