ALICANTE, 5 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Research led by the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH), together with the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), evaluates the usefulness of robots capable of expressing emotions for the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The objective is to offer personalized solutions, which integrate social robots, to improve the behavior and social response of children with these disorders.
Many of these children have problems recognizing emotions and one of the objectives of the project is to help them recognize and manage emotional information, as indicated by the Elche academic institution in a statement.
The director of the Biomedical Neuroengineering Group and the Bioengineering Institute of the UMH, Eduardo Fernández, has explained that it is a multidisciplinary project, in which experts in biomedical engineering, robotics, pediatrics and neurorehabilitation collaborate to try to offer personalized solutions and systems. of help to professionals working in this field.
Robots are used so that children can better understand different emotional states. Furthermore, he added that children interact with robots, so for them it is a game, but he specified that the focus of the project is on the needs of the children, not on the robots.
For his part, the professor at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena José Manuel Ferrández, who coordinates the programming of the robotic systems, has highlighted that the project integrates aspects associated with biomedical engineering, such as advanced sensors of physiological signals, Artificial Intelligence techniques ( AI) and new human-like robots, capable of teaching these children what different expressions and emotions mean.
The researcher Francisco Sánchez Ferrer (UMH, FISABIO), who collaborates in the project, has detailed that this type of therapeutic approaches is based on the integration of the physiological, perceptual and behavioral responses of children. To do this, researchers at the UMH Bioengineering Institute use different techniques, for example, cameras for detecting gestures and emotions in faces, and AI techniques for emotion recognition.
They also use real-time measurements of the variation in the electrical properties of the skin and the cardiac activity of children during treatment and eye-tracking techniques, among others.
The project, in which UNED and Fisabio also collaborate, is focused on increasing the motivation and emotional responses of children with ASD with the help of social robots to help them improve their socialization and communication skills.