Personalized Socially Assistive Robotics

The start of the 21st century, with its confluence of scientific and technological sophistication, presents a unique opportunity for robotics to positively impact human quality of life. Significant and growing societal needs include the lack of personalized one-on-one care for the growing populations of elderly individuals, children with developmental disorders, and those with special life-long cognitive and social needs. Developing systems capable of contributing to such application domains in human everyday life require great strides in the domains of assistive robotics and human-robot interaction (HRI). Our research work in the Interaction Lab at USC focuses on socially assistive robot systems with rich HRI models that can be validated, tested and evaluated in real-world settings, involving human subject users from relevant beneficiary special-needs populations, including children and the elderly, and spanning a broad range of application domains, including elder care, aging in place, post-stroke rehabilitation, special education, and social and developmental disorder therapy.