Simon Says “Exercise with Me” - A Socially Assistive Robot –Track Industry

The Biorobotics Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine introduces prospective and incoming students to the marriage between biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering, specifically through robotics. Our project’s proposal is to create a humanoid robot that could potentially be used as a socially assistive robot.

Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) have great potential to augment health care providers’ activities in physical, cognitive, and social activities [1] . SARs can be used in many fun and interactive aspects (exercise assistance for the elderly, task completion for the disabled). We will be applying bioengineering principles to programming and mechanical systems. The team plans to use technology from Dr. Reinkensmeyer’s lab to create an interactive humanoid robot based on the open-source InMoov robot. We hope to accomplish this project with a camera, motion sensors, microprocessor(s), and facial tracking concepts.

Our deliverables for Fall 2019 will consist of moving the head, arm and hand of the InMoov. We will first need to interface with the robot with a microprocessor to understand motor controls. Then, we will learn to simultaneously control multiple motors using the previously-built arm and head. We will eventually incorporate a depth camera and motion sensors for the facial tracking, in addition to improving the mechanical aspects of the robot, after our initial goals are reached.

List of References

[1] L. M. Beuscher et al., “ Socially Assistive Robots,” Journal of Gerontological Nursing , Jul.

2017. Available: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5989313/

Project Mentor:

Engineering Mentor: David J. Reinkensmeyer, PhD, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UC Irvine dreinken@uci.edu

Physician Mentor: TBD

Team: