Child-Robot Interaction: Learning by Imitation using Motion Generalization

The work is part of a partnership between the Institute of Systems and Robotics (ISR) and the Cerebral Palsy Association of Coimbra (APCC), developing child-robot interaction for the association's children.

The system pairs a NAO robot with a computer and a Kinect RGB-D depth sensor, connected through the Robot Operating System (ROS). It detects users, learns arm movements taught by a person, reproduces a person's arm movements on the robot, recognises movements and talks through voice commands.

In imitation mode the robot mirrors the user; in learning mode the user teaches new movements, and when a movement is not yet known the robot asks for it to be repeated until it can be learned and generalised. The skills were tested with adults and children, first one by one and then together in continuous interaction.