Importance of Mutual Communication Through a Simple User Interface in Care Robots

The rising aging population has escalated the need for physically assistive robots to aid the elderly, potentially taking over some roles of caregivers. However, a general unease exists among people when they physically interact with autonomously operating robots, leading to their limited adoption. To address this issue, accountability has been studied to reduce anxiety by displaying robot information. However, the one-way information presentation leaves the user feeling anxious because the content and timing of the movements might be inconsistent with the user’s intentions. Therefore, the importance of mutual communication in care robots was validated in this study using a user interface simple enough for the elderly to use during daily activities. A care robot was equipped with a screen and speaker for information presentation and user-operable buttons for intention input, enabling two-way communication. The robot presents its movement options to the user for confirmation when the robot detects user abnormality, followed by the user conveying the desired intention to the robot. The effectiveness of this mutual communication approach was rigorously tested under various conditions. The results of questionnaires indicated that the inclusion of button input for mutual communication enhanced user comfort and ease of use, underpinning the importance of bidirectional interaction in physically assistive robotics.