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International Conference on Social Robotics

ICSR 2017: Social Robotics pp 53–63Cite as

The Iterative Development of the Humanoid Robot Kaspar: An Assistive Robot for Children with Autism

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10652))

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of the design and development of the humanoid robot Kaspar. Since the first Kaspar robot was developed in 2005, the robotic platform has undergone continuous development driven by the needs of users and technological advancements enabling the integration of new features. We discuss in detail the iterative development of Kaspar’s design and clearly explain the rational of each development, which has been based on the user requirements as well as our years of experience in robot assisted therapy for children with autism, particularly focusing on how the developments benefit the children we work with. Further to this, we discuss the role and benefits of robotic autonomy on both children and therapist along with the progress that we have made on the Kaspar robot’s autonomy towards achieving a semi-autonomous child-robot interaction in a real world setting.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://youtu.be/Q6lRefbmDGo.

  2. 2.

    https://ninjatek.com/.

  3. 3.

    https://youtu.be/ujlas3J0kcg.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been partially funded by the BabyRobot project supported by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme under grant 687831.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Adaptive Systems Research Group, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield Herts, AL10 9AB, UK

    Luke J. Wood, Abolfazl Zaraki, Michael L. Walters, Ori Novanda, Ben Robins & Kerstin Dautenhahn

Authors
  1. Luke J. Wood
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  2. Abolfazl Zaraki
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  3. Michael L. Walters
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  4. Ori Novanda
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  5. Ben Robins
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  6. Kerstin Dautenhahn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luke J. Wood .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS-AIST JRL, Tsukuba, Japan

    Abderrahmane Kheddar

  2. CNRS-AIST JRL, Tsukuba, Japan

    Eiichi Yoshida

  3. The National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Shuzhi Sam Ge

  4. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Suzuki

  5. Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    John-John Cabibihan

  6. CITEC, Bielefeld, Germany

    Friederike Eyssel

  7. Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, USA

    Hongsheng He

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Wood, L.J., Zaraki, A., Walters, M.L., Novanda, O., Robins, B., Dautenhahn, K. (2017). The Iterative Development of the Humanoid Robot Kaspar: An Assistive Robot for Children with Autism. In: Kheddar, A., et al. Social Robotics. ICSR 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10652. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70022-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70022-9_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70021-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70022-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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