Development and Implementation of Behaviours for a Socially Assistive Robot for the Elderly

Bingo is a cognitively stimulating recreational activity popular in long-term care facilities and retirement homes. This thesis focuses on the development of the human-like socially assistive robot Tangy for the autonomous facilitation of Bingo. A set of assistive social behaviours are developed for multi-user and single user interactions the robot may encounter while facilitating the Bingo game. In addition, development of actuation modules for establishing eye contact, controlling the arms, and interacting with players using audio communication is discussed. A set of experiments verified the system performance of these behaviours and actuation capabilities and the efficacy of the social robot behaviours with elderly residents in long-term care. The results demonstrate that the robot determines and executes the appropriate behaviours during the facilitation of a Bingo game, and that elderly residents enjoyed interacting with Tangy and wished to participate in Bingo games facilitated by the robot in the future.M.A.S