Vocal pain expression augmentation for a robopatient

Frontiers in Robotics and AI

Robotics and AI

Leone Costi¹  Fumiya Iida¹  Namnueng Protpagorn¹  Thilina Dulantha Lalitharatne² 

[1] Bio Inspired Robotics Laboratory, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom;Bio Inspired Robotics Laboratory, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom;Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom;

关键词: robotic patients;    robot-assisted training;    audio augmentation;    human–robot interaction;    palpation;    medical training simulators;   

DOI  :  10.3389/frobt.2023.1122914

 received in 2022-12-13, accepted in 2023-08-21,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Abdominal palpation is one of the basic but important physical examination methods used by physicians. Visual, auditory, and haptic feedback from the patients are known to be the main sources of feedback they use in the diagnosis. However, learning to interpret this feedback and making accurate diagnosis require several years of training. Many abdominal palpation training simulators have been proposed to date, but very limited attempts have been reported in integrating vocal pain expressions into physical abdominal palpation simulators. Here, we present a vocal pain expression augmentation for a robopatient. The proposed robopatient is capable of providing real-time facial and vocal pain expressions based on the exerted palpation force and position on the abdominal phantom of the robopatient. A pilot study is conducted to test the proposed system, and we show the potential of integrating vocal pain expressions to the robopatient. The platform has also been tested by two clinical experts with prior experience in abdominal palpation. Their evaluations on functionality and suggestions for improvements are presented. We highlight the advantages of the proposed robopatient with real-time vocal and facial pain expressions as a controllable simulator platform for abdominal palpation training studies. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the proposed approach and suggest several future directions for improvements.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Protpagorn, Lalitharatne, Costi and Iida.

【 图 表 】

FPHAR_fphar-2023-1240433_wc_tfx5.tif