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arXiv · 2109.09223

Initial Test of "BabyRobot" Behaviour on a Teleoperated Toy Substitution: Improving the Motor Skills of Toddlers

Eric Canas·Alba M. G. Garcia·Anais Garrell·Cecilio Angulo
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Abstract

This article introduces "Baby Robot", a robot aiming to improve motor skills of babies and toddlers. Authors developed a car-like toy that moves autonomously using reinforcement learning and computer vision techniques. The robot behaviour is to escape from a target baby that has been previously recognized, or at least detected, while avoiding obstacles, so that the security of the baby is not compromised. A myriad of commercial toys with a similar mobility improvement purpose are into the market; however, there is no one that bets for an intelligent autonomous movement, as they perform simple yet repetitive trajectories in the best of the cases. Two crawling toys -- one in representation of "Baby Robot" -- were tested in a real environment with respect to regular toys in order to check how they improved the toddlers mobility. These real-life experiments were conducted with our proposed robot in a kindergarten, where a group of children interacted with the toys. Significant improvement in the motion skills of participants were detected.

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Eric Canas, Alba M. G. Garcia, Anais Garrell, Cecilio Angulo. 2021-09-19. Initial Test of "BabyRobot" Behaviour on a Teleoperated Toy Substitution: Improving the Motor Skills of Toddlers. https://doi.org/10.5555/3523760.3523860

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