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Developing Kaspar: a humanoid robot for children with Autism

Wood, Luke J., Zaraki, Abolfazl ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6204-7865, Robins, Ben and Dautenhahn, Kerstin 2021. Developing Kaspar: a humanoid robot for children with Autism. International Journal of Social Robotics 13 , pp. 491-508. 10.1007/s12369-019-00563-6

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Abstract

In the late 1990s using robotic technology to assist children with Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASD) emerged as a potentially useful area of research. Since then the field of assistive robotics for children with ASD has grown considerably with many academics trialling different robots and approaches. One such robot is the humanoid robot Kaspar that was originally developed in 2005 and has continually been built upon since, taking advantage of technological developments along the way. A key principle in the development of Kaspar since its creation has been to ensure that all of the advances to the platform are driven by the requirements of the users. In this paper we discuss the development of Kaspar’s design and explain the rationale behind each change to the platform. Designing and building a humanoid robot to interact with and help children with ASD is a multidisciplinary challenge that requires knowledge of the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, Human–Computer Interaction (HCI), Child–Robot Interaction (CRI) and knowledge of ASD. The Kaspar robot has benefited from the wealth of knowledge accrued over years of experience in robot-assisted therapy for children with ASD. By showing the journey of how the Kaspar robot has developed we aim to assist others in the field develop such technologies further.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Engineering
Additional Information: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Publisher: Springer Verlag (Germany)
ISSN: 1875-4791
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 27 January 2020
Date of Acceptance: 17 May 2019
Last Modified: 05 May 2023 04:01
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/128985

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