Performance of a socially assistive robot as trainer for physical exercises for older people

Abstract:
In the project PhysicAAL, a socially assistive robot based prototype system for physical training support and motivation at home was developed. To ensure an effective and user-accepted realization of these tasks, within the participatory design physiotherapists were involved in all project stages by means of an iterative process. Essential within the development of the prototype system were the implementation of a coherent training description and demonstration as well as the implementation of a computer-aided evaluation of the quality and the correctness of the execution of training exercises. By performing a user study with the prototypic training system, whose basic elements are the social assistive robot NAO and the Microsoft Kinect, the correctness and comprehensibility of the demonstration and presentation of exercises, the corrective feedback provided by the SAR and the inter-rater agreement between computer-aided algorithms and physiotherapists were evaluated. The comparison of two different computer-aided algorithms and the rating of physiotherapists for the determination of the quality of exercises during the user tests show a medium to strong positive correlation. By means of a combination of these computer-aided algorithms an immediate and specific feedback related to predefined movement parameters during the exercise as well as the presentation of the long-term progress of exercising to motivate the user and avoid the training of incorrect movement pattern is provided.