Can Robots Play a Role in Improving Lives of Autistic Individuals?

Lately I am noticing a lot of interest from the robotics community in developing robots to help autistic individuals.  Some of these efforts are based on technology push, i.e., people have developed a cool new robot and they would like to see if autistic individuals can benefit from using it.  Some efforts are genuinely targeted at understanding the needs of the autistic individuals and developing solutions to help them.

This post shares my thoughts on this topic based on our family’s experiences in raising an autistic daughter. Let me begin by setting the context.  Autism is a neurodevelopment disorder that affects the brain development.  Representative symptoms associated with autism include difficulty with social interaction, limited verbal and non-verbal communication, and repetitive behaviors. Individuals with autism face many challenges in their daily lives.

The intensity of symptoms associated with autism can vary from mild to very severe and there is a considerable variation in symptoms.  Experts use the term autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to refer to autism and related disorders.  It is often said that no two autistic individuals are alike. According to the recent statistics, one out of every eighty eight children born in the U.S. is diagnosed with ASD.  Unfortunately, there is no known medical cure for autism, making it a pressing social problem.

Individuals with ASD struggle every day to live in the world designed for neuro-typical individuals.  Most autistic individuals are hyper sensitive and often experience sensory overloads. Sounds, smells, and sights that might appear normal to most people often can overpower the senses of autistic individuals. They use stimulatory repetitive behaviors to compensate for the sensory overload.  Many autistic individuals struggle with language. They have a basic understanding of the vocabulary and grammar, but advanced language concepts are often foreign to them. Many autistic individuals are good in picking up body language cues from their peers and can sense the disapproval and rejection of their behaviors by their neuro-typical peers. However, most autistic individuals are helpless in controlling their behaviors; their own bodies and brains betray them every day.

Here is how the world might appear to an autistic teen as he/she goes through the daily life. Imagine that you are in the 10th grade science class.  The heating system in the class is making a really loud annoying thumping noise. This is crippling your ability to think. You try to cover your ears and start humming to drown that excruciating sound.  Your science teacher is delivering the science lecture in a “foreign language”. You understand the basics, but you are unable to follow the advanced vocabulary being used in the class. You are extremely frustrated and the stress is making it impossible for you to sit in your seat, so you are constantly fidgeting. You are noticing disapproving looks from your peers who find you weird and annoying. You are feeling humiliated and unwelcome in the class. You would like to fit in, but you are unable to control movements of your own body. The teacher has just announced that the next class will have a quiz. Quizzes make you really anxious and now you can feel a knot forming in your stomach.  Nausea has kicked in and the simple task of walking from Science classroom to English classroom appears to be a Herculean task.    

Unfortunately,  parents are often helpless and unable to eliminate the pain and suffering of their ASD children.  Providing care for autistic individuals can be emotionally and physically exhausting.   Most parents try very hard to improve lives of their children. Unfortunately, they also worry non-stop as to what will happen to their ASD sons and daughters as they grow old and unable to care for them.  Unfortunately, there is no good answer.  This can be a tiring, frustrating, and heart-breaking experience.  But this unfortunate adversity in life also showcases the resiliency of the human spirit. You meet so many individuals who do not give up and continue to fight incredibility hard to put one more smile on the faces of their loved ones and make the world a fair place by demanding universal accessibility.
  
Given this background, the question is - can robots play a role in improving the lives of autistic individuals?  We will have to approach this question very carefully as learning to interact with humans is a key to the survival of autistic individuals in the neuro-typical world. Robots should not try to reduce the human involvement in the lives of autistic individuals. However, robots can be useful in one of the following situations:

1. Increasing the human interaction will be detrimental to the intended outcome.
    
2. The use of robots can significantly improve the quality of life for autistic individuals.
    
3. Humans with the right expertise are not available to meet the needs of autistic individuals.

Here are my preliminary thoughts on potential applications of robots based on the above described situations.  

• Overcoming Positive Interaction Deficit: The human brain is wired to seek positive social interaction. Many autistic individuals also crave positive social interaction. However, it is very hard for them to interact with neuro-typical individuals and this can be quite frustrating for them. The lack of adequate amount of positive social interaction can lead to severe depression. In my opinion, there is no good way for us to overcome positive interaction deficit faced by autistic individuals by increasing the human interaction.  Human interaction is extremely important, but simply increasing the amount of human interaction does not mean that autistic individuals perceive this increase in a positive light. In fact, many autistic individuals prefer to interact with animals instead of humans because animals are non-judgmental and reciprocate affection unconditionally.  However, many autistic individuals are unable to take care of pets. I believe that robots can be designed to entertain, stimulate positive interaction, and uplift the moods of autistic individuals. Such robots must be carefully designed to ensure that they fulfill the positive interaction deficit and not try to replace the need for interacting with humans.       
   
• Improving Safety and Independence:  Many autistic individuals lack the basic notions of safety. This significantly worries caregivers and interferes with the freedom and personal space of autistic individuals. I believe that robotics-based technologies can be developed and adopted to enhance safety and independence of autistic individuals. These technologies can be used for safety monitoring (e.g., kitchen stove is switched off after use, medicine was taken on time), assist with household chores (e.g., cleaning), and navigation in complex surroundings (e.g., finding a store in a mall). There are many interesting technologies being developed for assisted living facilities that might find use in homes of autistic individuals. These technologies are not likely to look like a typical robot, but we should not care about the form.        
   
• Improving Training and Education:  We have to find a way to create meaningful employment opportunities for autistic individuals. Not doing this will create a significant financial strain on the rest of the society. Many autistic individuals have natural talents such as computers, music, and mathematics. These talents should be nurtured and harnessed. Learning to function well in the society will require developing appropriate social interaction skills such as making eye contact, reacting appropriately to facial expressions and body language, and making small talk. Currently autistic individuals get very limited opportunities to practice and hone these skills. Robots can be designed to enable autistic individuals to practice these skills for extended periods of time. It is very difficult to put effective special education teachers in all the classrooms with autistic children. Telepresence robots might be able to expand that geographic reach of superstar special education teachers and contribute to the training of autistic individuals.                   

I believe robots can play a useful role in improving the lives of autistic individuals, but we should take extreme care to ensure that robots do not displace humans from the lives of ASD individuals. Ultimately, human contact and interaction will be vital for ASD individuals to function well in the society.          

Can open source hardware movement be used to realize low cost educational robots?

Robots are expensive! A simple robot arm costs more than ten thousand dollars. On the other hand, a state-of-the-art dish washer costs less than a thousand dollars. These two are not significantly different in terms of size or complexity, so what is the reason for such a large difference in their prices?

Most robots today get produced in relatively low volumes while popular dish washer models get produced in high volumes. This means they use different manufacturing approaches. Amortized setup and tooling costs are much lower in high volume production. High volume production lines use a high level of automation so human labor costs are reduced. Inventory costs are also much lower for products that sell in high volumes. Finally, amortized research and development costs are much lower for products that sell in high volumes. All of these factors combined together lead to higher sticker price for robots that are produced in low volumes. For obvious reasons, robots with high sales volume are relatively inexpensive (e.g., iRobot Roomba and Lego Mindstorms).

I am particularly concerned about high costs for educational robots.  Robots have emerged as wonderful teaching tools, and we ought to be using sophisticated robots in our classrooms. Unfortunately, most schools cannot afford them at current prices since we need robots that cost less than one thousand dollars. It is highly unlikely that production volumes for robots will go up dramatically over the next few years and bring costs down to below the one thousand dollar mark. We need to explore other ideas to reduce costs of educational robots.     

The open source software concept is revolutionizing the software industry. A newcomer can get started with very little initial investment and build upon the software created by others. The robotics community has embraced the open source software notion wholeheartedly.  The Open Source Robotics Foundation and Robot Operating System are leveling the field and giving an opportunity to a large number of participants to contribute to robot software development. Regardless, we still have a major problem in terms of access to the sophisticated hardware.    
    

The open source notion has been successfully used by the 3-D printing community in the context of hardware.  Open source hardware has led to a dramatic decrease in cost and helped in realizing low cost 3-D printers (e.g., RepRap and Fab@Home).  The robotics community is taking inspiration from this success and beginning to embrace the concept of open source hardware.   

The open source robot hardware idea calls for publishing the complete design details in an open forum. These details should include 3-D models for custom parts, instructions for making custom parts, detailed specifications for standard parts, instructions for assembling the robot, associated software for operation, and instructions for operating and maintaining the robot. 

Since people fabricate their own robots using open source design, this concept eliminates the need to pay for labor and inventory costs. People can buy components from low cost sources and reuse components from one robot design to other.  For example, a laptop can be shared across many different robots. Overall, this concept can be used to dramatically reduce the cost of acquiring a robot if one is willing to put time into building it.               

Curiously enough, the open source hardware cost model shares ideas from IKEA’s cost model that has allowed this Swedish company to sell furniture at low costs. IKEA’s model leverages three factors in reducing costs. First, it eliminates assembly costs. Second, shipping and storage costs associated with components are very small compared to shipping assembled furniture. Finally, despite offering a large variety of furniture, IKEA uses many shared components across furniture lines and is able to reduce component costs due to the economy of scale.   

Two undergraduate students in my lab, +Gregory Krummel and +Gina Knight have developed designs of two open source robots.  These designs were developed with educators and hobbyists in mind. The first one is an eight degree of freedom robot inspired by crocodile (please click here to see the video). This robot features an articulated tail, mouth, and legs, and it can demonstrate walking abilities and obstacle avoidance. The second one is a twelve degree of freedom robot that can climb stairs (please click here to see the video). Written instructions and computer-aided design (CAD) files can be found in the video descriptions. Individuals can fabricate and/or purchase their own parts from electronics suppliers and build these robots. These robots offer a new learning opportunity for those with an interest in robotics. 

Crocodile-Inspired Robot

Stair-Climbing Robot

I envision the following three different models around the open source robotics hardware movement.

• People make custom parts on their own, purchase standard parts, and assemble the robot.

• People buy pre-fabricated robot kits from suppliers and assemble robots.

• People purchase preassembled robots from the suppliers based on open source design.

Once adequate numbers of open source robot designs are available, companies can use the free open source design files to fabricate parts and aggregate them with standard electronics into a kit to sell to those who do not have the equipment to make parts themselves.

The open source hardware concept is much more challenging in practice compared to open source software.  Hardware obsolescence is a major concern. Access to manufacturing equipment for making parts is also a challenge. We need to find ways to overcome these obstacles.  

Open source robotics can also promote innovation in the field of robotics. Interested individuals can begin with an open source robot design and improve parts of it. This is much easier to accomplish then designing and realizing a complete robot from scratch.  

I am looking forward to hearing from other groups that have developed open source robots. It will useful to compile a list of best practices in developing open source robot hardware.   

Can open source hardware movement be used to realize low cost educational robots? Please share your thoughts by posting comments on this post.