Robotics Expert Builds Bots to Be Caregivers From: IEEE - The Institute - 10/06/2015 By: Prachi Patel They are designed for people with Autism, the elderly, and others who could use a helping hand IEEE Fellow Maja Mataric imagines that within a decade robots will not only help care for stroke patients, the elderly, and the disabled in their homes but also engage with children who have autism or teens who suffer from anxiety. A professor of computer science, neuroscience, and pediatrics at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Mataric runs the school’s Interaction Lab, where she works to develop smart, socially adept robots to assist people with physical, cognitive, and social needs. These robots could potentially provide in-home therapy that would complement the shortage of human caregivers. Mataric is developing autonomous robots that use body language, gestures, and facial expressions of their own to motivate people to perform specific physical, social, or cognitive behaviors. She develops her helper bots on new or existing robotics platforms by programming them to interact with people in various ways. The platforms include the 0.6-meter-tall Nao humanoid robot from Aldebaran Robotics and Bandit, a robot with an expressive, humanlike face from BlueSky Robotics. The crux of Mataric’s work is developing the clever software that drives them. The robots could, for example, demonstrate physical therapy and rehabilitation exercises to an elderly person or stroke patient and then offer feedback and praise to aid with motivation. Or they could develop an autistic child’s social interaction skills by making eye contact or playing a game. Her studies have shown that in the presence of robots, many children with autism - who generally have communication difficulties—become more social and vocal and begin to interact first with the robots, then with their adult caregivers. Read the entire article at: http://theinstitute.ieee.org/people/profiles/robotics-expert-builds-bots-to-be-caregivers Links: Maja Mataric http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~maja http://viterbi.usc.edu/about/administration/bio_mataric.htm http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~maja/bio.html The Interaction Lab http://robotics.usc.edu/interaction Nao https://www.aldebaran.com/en/humanoid-robot/nao-robot Bandit http://rasc.usc.edu/bandit.html