Abstract

Use of robots in socially assistive tasks is dynamically growing. Robot-assisted therapy for children with autism is one of the most popular practical applications. Design of robot-assisted therapy requires intensive effort on close collaboration with experts in the related fields for effective therapeutic interventions. At the same time, in-depth analysis for autism therapy session and theoretical background and careful consideration in easy rapid application are importantly necessary because the end user of robot is autism therapist after all. The goal of this presentation is to share previous and on-going design experiences of robot-assisted therapy in the collaboration between professionals in autism therapy and robotics engineers, and also to deliver the design features and hands-on guidelines in designing robot-assisted therapy based on the experience and knowledge. More specifically, this presentation will introduce the research project on rapid prototyping framework for developing robot-based autism therapy, which has been done in the Netherlands. The extended design strategy for robot-based autism therapy in the other project which has been performed in Korea will be presented as well. At last, the features and guidelines in developing robot-based therapy that have been found so far will be discussed, including the current research project in Korea.

Biography

Min-Gyu Kim is currently a Senior Researcher, Regional Innovation Team, at the Korea Institute of Robotics and Technology Convergence, South Korea. His research mainly focuses on User-centered Engineering, in particular, System and User modeling in Human-Robot Interaction and Human Factors in Social Robotics. He received the B.E. in Electronics Engineering and M.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Korea Aerospace University, South Korea in 2003 and 2005 respectively. He holds his PhD degree in Intelligent Interaction Technologies from University of Tsukuba, Japan in 2012. From 2013 to 2015, he worked as a Postdoc Fellow in the Dept. of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.

Contact

Min-Gyu Kim
Korea Institute of Robotics and Technology Convergence
39, Jigok-ro, Pohang, Gyeonsangbuk-do, 37666, South Korea
mingyukim@kiro.re.kr