Wizard-of-Oz system för interaktion på distans med den sociala roboten Furhat

Sammanfattning: In the last decades the average life expectancy of humans has increased significantly. There are more old people than ever before. At the same time there is a big staff shortage at nursing homes. A future study will examine the effect of introducing a socially intelligent robot called Furhat in such a home. In this work a so-called Wizard-of-Oz control system is developed which enables remote control of the normally autonomous Furhat. This control system will later be used in the future study. The Wizard-of-Oz control system is developed with the intention of reaching the lowest possible response time between the control system and Furhat to minimize the risk of unnatural conversation due to long wait times between actions. It is found that a response time at or above 500ms can have a clearly degrading effect on a conversation. By following code-standards with a focus on developing fast code an average response time in the range of 35-245ms depending on the action taken is reached.