Interactive Remote Robot for Pediatric Patients

Pediatric patients are defined based on the age of 21 years old or younger during the time of diagnosis or treatment. Patients that are traumatized by the unfortunate incident do not have a companion in the ward once admitted. Medical procedures may become invasive that could cause distress for the patients causing them to develop stress and anxiety before the upcoming procedure. The research has developed and tested an interactive robot to assist pediatric patients to undergo medical procedures. Speech recognition and body gestures was built in the robot to interact with the patients. The humanoid robot is programmed to maintain receiving responses from samples of pediatric patients with Artificial Intelligence (AI) which acted as social skills such as giving feedback and giving mutual gaze while communicating. An Arduino microcontroller was built into the robot to control the movements of the robot via a Bluetooth module. DC motors are used for robot movements that are connected to motor drivers due to the extra power supply required to operate. AI was created for communication skills with patients. The result presents an analysis of the communication performance of the robot and AI. The robot movement was presented, and AI answers communication was listed. Research has presented its significance in that the robot helps and assisted patients to entertain and interact with pediatric patients during hospital stay which motivates and cheer them.