Arash: A social robot buddy to support children with cancer in a hospital environment

Abstract

This article presents the thorough design procedure, specifications, and performance of a mobile social robot friend Arash for educational and therapeutic involvement of children with cancer based on their interests and needs. Our research focuses on employing Arash in a pediatric hospital environment to entertain, assist, and educate children with cancer who suffer from physical pain caused by both the disease and its treatment process. Since cancer treatment causes emotional distress, which can reduce the efficiency of medications, using social robots to interact with children with cancer in a hospital environment could decrease this distress, thereby improving the effectiveness of their treatment. Arash is a 15 degree-of-freedom low-cost humanoid mobile robot buddy, carefully designed with appropriate measures and developed to interact with children ages 5–12 years old. The robot has five physical subsystems: the head, arms, torso, waist, and mobile-platform. The robot’s final appearance is a significant novel concept; since it was selected based on a survey taken from 50 children with chronic diseases at three pediatric hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Founded on these measures and desires, Arash was designed, built, improved, and enhanced to operate successfully in pediatric cancer hospitals. Two experiments were devised to evaluate the children’s level of acceptance and involvement with the robot, assess their feelings about it, and measure how much the robot was similar to the favored conceptual sketch. Both experiments were conducted in the form of storytelling and appearance/performance evaluations. The obtained results confirm high engagement and interest of pediatric cancer patients with the constructed robot.