5. Challenges

skill of children with disabilities. Likewise, social robots have also been useful as coaches for physical exercises and following diet plans. A well-known example of a coaching robot is Autom [47] that is designed to be a weight loss coach. Another similar robot, iRobiQ, monitors hypertension, manages medication and issues reminders. A wide variety of assistive social robots for elderly care have also been designed ranging from robotic wheelchairs to companion robots attempting to compensate the loss of a family member. Experiments with Paro, the therapeutic robot, revealed that the presence of a social robot in an old home increased the

Service robots are designed to assist human beings in doing everyday tasks including household chores (Figure 5b). Examples of these robots include PatrolBot for delivery, security, monitoring and guidance, Gita for cargo carrying, Roomba that serves as a vacuum cleaner, Sanbot that provide passenger services at airport and many more. Likewise, social robots like Rhino and Mobot have been designed to serve as guides for tourists. Severinson-Eklundh et al. [48] discuss the interaction models between humans and service robots using Cero as an example. The authors conclude that for satisfactory interactive sessions, the design considerations, in addition to the primary user of the service robot, should also take into account the group of people in the environment where the robot is intended to provide its services. Likewise, authors in [49] discuss the design issues interaction between humans and domestic robots using Roomba vacuum cleaner as a case study. The authors investigate the possibilities of smoothly 'fitting' such service robots in the home environment. A multi-modal design based on vision and speech is proposed in [50]. Though the models are discussed with service robots as applications, the authors claim that the proposed interaction cycle can be applied to general

Beyond health care and services, robots have increasingly been used in the education sector as well. While introduction of robots in class room teaching makes the lectures interesting in the elementary schools, robots have been effectively employed in the higher educational institutes as well. Students of medicine, for instance, can perform complicated medical procedures on humanoid robots. Likewise, engineering students can use robots in complex or dangerous experimental or real world scenarios. One such popular educational robot is NAO (Figure 5c) developed by SoftBank Robotics. In addition to general education, NAO robots have also been employed to interact with autistic children. Robots can also serve as proxies both for students and teachers in case they are not able to attend the classes. A well-known series of such education robots has been designed by VGoRobotics. A key concern in using robots as teachers is the replacement of interpersonal relationships. Such robots also need to detect and adapt to the social mood of the environment they are deployed in. Some researchers argue that robots at elementary schools must change their behavior as a function of the activities of the children. A

comprehensive review of the applicability of robots in education can be found in [51].

number of interactions among the elderly residents.

16 Human-Robot Interaction - Theory and Application

man-machine interaction scenarios as well.

4.4. Service

4.5. Education

Despite the emergent technological solutions at hand and conceptualizations regarding acceptability, there are considerable challenges to be addressed before social believability in robots can be considered a success. Literature [52, 53] suggests that the integration of social robots in human society poses both social and technical problems.
