Deep Learning-Based Cost-Effective and Responsive Robot for Autism Treatment, (2023). Singh A., Raj K., Kumar T., Verma S., Roy A.M.

Open access article: https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/7/2/81

Abstract
Recent studies state that, for a person with autism spectrum disorder, learning and
improvement is often seen in environments where technological tools are involved. A robot is
an excellent tool to be used in therapy and teaching. It can transform teaching methods, not
just in the classrooms but also in the in-house clinical practices. With the rapid advancement
in deep learning techniques, robots became more capable of handling human behaviour. In
this paper, we present a cost-efficient, socially designed robot called ‘Tinku’, developed to
assist in teaching special needs children. ‘Tinku’ is low cost but is full of features and has the
ability to produce human-like expressions. Its design is inspired by the widely accepted
animated character ‘WALL-E’. Its capabilities include offline speech processing and
computer vision—we used light object detection models, such as Yolo v3-tiny and single shot
detector (SSD)—for obstacle avoidance, non-verbal communication, expressing emotions in
an anthropomorphic way, etc. It uses an onboard deep learning technique to localize the
objects in the scene and uses the information for semantic perception. We have developed
several lessons for training using these features. A sample lesson about brushing is discussed
to show the robot’s capabilities. Tinku is cute, and loaded with lots of features, and the
management of all the processes is mind-blowing. It is developed in the supervision of
clinical experts and its condition for application is taken care of. A small survey on the
appearance is also discussed. More importantly, it is tested on small children for the
acceptance of the technology and compatibility in terms of voice interaction. It helps autistic
kids using state-of-the-art deep learning models. Autism Spectral disorders are being
increasingly identified today’s world. The studies show that children are prone to interact
with technology more comfortably than a with human instructor. To fulfil this demand, we
presented a cost-effective solution in the form of a robot with some common lessons for the
training of an autism-affected child.

Citation: Deep Learning-Based Cost-Effective and Responsive Robot for Autism Treatment,
(2023). Singh, A.; Raj, K.; Kumar, T.; Verma, S.; Roy, A.M. Deep Learning-Based Cost-
Effective and Responsive Robot for Autism Treatment. Drones 2023, 7, 81.
https://doi.org/10.3390/drones7020081