A Modular Interface for Controlling Interactive Behaviors of a Humanoid Robot for Socio-Emotional Skills Training

The usage of social robots in psychotherapy has gained interest in various applications. In the context of therapy for children with socio-emotional impairments, for example autism spectrum conditions, the first approaches have already been successfully evaluated in research. In this context, the robot can be seen as a tool for therapists to foster interaction with the children. To ensure a successful integration of social robots into therapy sessions, an intuitive and comprehensive interface for the therapist is needed to guarantee save and appropriate human-robot interaction. This publication addresses the development of a graphical user interface for robot-assisted therapy to train socio-emotional skills in children on the autism spectrum. The software follows a generic and modular approach. Furthermore, a robotic middleware is used to control the robot and the user interface is based on a local web application. During therapy sessions, the therapist interface is used to control the robot’s reactions and provides additional information from emotion and arousal recognition software. The approach is implemented with the humanoid robot Pepper (Softbank Robotics). A pilot study is carried out with four experts from a child and youth psychiatry to evaluate the feasibility and user experience of the therapist interface. In sum, the user experience and usefulness can be rated positively.