Using AI-Enhanced Social Robots to Improve Children's Healthcare Experiences

Foster, M. E. , Ali, S., Litwin, S., Parker, J., Petrick, R. P. A., Smith, D. H., Stinson, J. and Zeller, F. (2020) Using AI-Enhanced Social Robots to Improve Children's Healthcare Experiences. In: The 12th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2020), 14-16 Nov 2020, ISBN 9783030620554

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Abstract

This paper describes a new research project that aims to develop an autonomous and responsive social robot designed to help children cope with painful procedures in hospital emergency departments. While this is an application domain where psychological interventions have been previously demonstrated to be effective at reducing pain and distress using a variety of devices and techniques, in recent years, social robots have been trialled in this area with promising initial results. However, until now, the social robots that have been tested have generally been teleoperated, which has limited their flexibility and robustness, as well as the potential to offer personalized, adaptive procedural support. Using co-design techniques, this project plans to define and validate the necessary robot behaviour together with participant groups that include children, parents and caregivers, and healthcare professionals. Identified behaviours will be deployed on a robot platform, incorporating AI reasoning techniques that will enable the robot to adapt autonomously to the child’s behaviour. The final robot system will be evaluated through a two-site clinical trial. Throughout the project, we will also monitor and analyse the ethical and social implications of robotics and AI in paediatric healthcare.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Additional Information:Book Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Foster, Dr Mary Ellen
Authors: Foster, M. E., Ali, S., Litwin, S., Parker, J., Petrick, R. P. A., Smith, D. H., Stinson, J., and Zeller, F.
Subjects:Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
ISSN:0302-9743
ISBN:9783030620554
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2020 Springer International Publishing
First Published:First published in Social Robotics 12th International Conference, ICSR 2020, Golden, CO, USA, November 14–18, 2020, Proceedings
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy
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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
309030Using AI-Enhanced Social Robots to Improve Children's Experiences in Clinical SettingsMary Ellen FosterEconomic and Social Research Council (ESRC)ES/T012986/1Computing Science