A Sociable Robot System to Support Weight Loss

Human-robot interaction is now understood well enough to allow us to build useful systems that can function outside of the laboratory. In my work, I propose the concept of a sociable robot system, which consists of a robot as a user interface to a complex system. The problem that I address as a use for such a system is a system to assist people who are trying to lose or maintain weight to remain engaged and motivated with their weight loss program for a longer period of time than they otherwise would and therefore be more successful in the long term. I present the design of this system along with methods for experimental testing.