SPRITE: Stewart Platform Robot for Interactive Tabletop Engagement
This work addresses the need for interactive robots in socially assistive applications, but it appears incremental as it focuses on design goals without novel breakthroughs.
The authors tackled the design of a tabletop socially assistive robot for non-contact social interaction in health, wellness, and education, resulting in the SPRITE robot with specified design goals such as expressive movement and safety.
We present the design of the Stewart Platform Robot for Interactive Tabletop Engagement (SPRITE). This robot is designed for use in socially assistive robotics, a field focusing on non-contact social interaction to help people achieve goals relating to health, wellness, and education. We describe a series of design goals for a tabletop, socially assistive robot, including expressive movement, affective communication, a friendly, nonthreatening, and customizable appearance, and a safe, robust, and easily-repaired mechanical design.