Meghdari Ali, Shariati Azadeh, Alemi Minoo, Vossoughi Gholamreza R, Eydi Abdollah, Ahmadi Ehsan, Mozafari Behrad, Amoozandeh Nobaveh Ali, Tahami Reza
1 Social & Cognitive Robotics Laboratory, Center of Excellence in Design, Robotics, and Automation (CEDRA), Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Islamic Azad University, North Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran.
Proc Inst Mech Eng H. 2018 Jun;232(6):605-618. doi: 10.1177/0954411918777520.
This article presents the thorough design procedure, specifications, and performance of a mobile social robot friend Arash for educational and therapeutic involvement of children with cancer based on their interests and needs. Our research focuses on employing Arash in a pediatric hospital environment to entertain, assist, and educate children with cancer who suffer from physical pain caused by both the disease and its treatment process. Since cancer treatment causes emotional distress, which can reduce the efficiency of medications, using social robots to interact with children with cancer in a hospital environment could decrease this distress, thereby improving the effectiveness of their treatment. Arash is a 15 degree-of-freedom low-cost humanoid mobile robot buddy, carefully designed with appropriate measures and developed to interact with children ages 5-12 years old. The robot has five physical subsystems: the head, arms, torso, waist, and mobile-platform. The robot's final appearance is a significant novel concept; since it was selected based on a survey taken from 50 children with chronic diseases at three pediatric hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Founded on these measures and desires, Arash was designed, built, improved, and enhanced to operate successfully in pediatric cancer hospitals. Two experiments were devised to evaluate the children's level of acceptance and involvement with the robot, assess their feelings about it, and measure how much the robot was similar to the favored conceptual sketch. Both experiments were conducted in the form of storytelling and appearance/performance evaluations. The obtained results confirm high engagement and interest of pediatric cancer patients with the constructed robot.
本文介绍了一款移动社交机器人朋友阿拉什（Arash）的详细设计过程、规格和性能，该机器人旨在根据癌症患儿的兴趣和需求，参与到对他们的教育和治疗中。我们的研究重点是在儿科医院环境中使用阿拉什，为患有癌症且因疾病及其治疗过程而遭受身体疼痛的儿童提供娱乐、帮助和教育。由于癌症治疗会导致情绪困扰，而这可能会降低药物治疗的效果，因此在医院环境中使用社交机器人与癌症患儿互动，可以减少这种困扰，从而提高他们治疗的有效性。阿拉什是一个具有15个自由度的低成本人形移动机器人伙伴，经过精心设计并采取了适当措施，旨在与5至12岁的儿童进行互动。该机器人有五个物理子系统：头部、手臂、躯干、腰部和移动平台。机器人的最终外观是一个重要的新颖概念，因为它是根据对伊朗德黑兰三家儿科医院的50名慢性病患儿进行的调查选定的。基于这些措施和期望，阿拉什被设计、制造、改进和完善，以便在儿科癌症医院中成功运行。我们设计了两个实验，以评估儿童对机器人的接受程度和参与程度，评估他们对机器人的感受，并衡量机器人与受欢迎的概念草图的相似程度。这两个实验均以讲故事以及外观/性能评估的形式进行。所获得的结果证实了儿科癌症患者对所构建机器人的高度参与和兴趣。
