TAIPEI (TVBS News) — RoBoCom, a team comprised of students from various departments at National Taiwan University (NTU, 台灣大學), has unveiled a companion robot designed to alleviate loneliness among the elderly at COMPUTEX. The robot, featuring various personalities, aims to foster social connectedness by providing engaging, reciprocal communication. It utilizes a smooth dialogue system and emotional detection to tailor responses to users' emotional cues.
Jonathan Chang, a student from NTU's Department of Psychology, explained on Tuesday (May 20) that the robot enhances companionship by adapting its speaking style to user preferences, discussing daily life, and guiding seniors through cherished memories. This personalized approach aims to make interactions feel natural and comforting, especially for elderly care. The robot displays nine distinct facial expressions and can understand conversations, transcribing user content onto its screen.
"The robot generates responses using a large language model and converts them into real sounds for user interaction," Chang said. "To maintain and prolong conversations, we've equipped the robot with specific personalities and backstories, which significantly improves user experience and creates genuine interaction."
RoBoCam noted that beyond fostering conversation, the robot enables users to share conversation logs with family members or caregivers, improving the support network for seniors. The team plans to connect the robot to databases for weather information and international news, though Chang acknowledged that integrating this data into a conversational interface presents challenges.