An adaptive robot for sports and rehabilitation coaching

Abstract

This thesis investigates how, and to what extent, an adaptive robotic coach could be used to increase motivation to, and effectiveness of, long-term repetitive solo practice in squash and rehabilitation after stroke. Stroke is one of the leading causes of acquired adult disability with survivors commonly suffering permanent impairments such as fatigue and weakness in the arms and legs. Although past research strongly suggests that unsupervised rehabilitation practice is beneficial to the patient, it is often not adhered to due to (among other reasons) a lack of motivation. Squash, on the other hand, is an intermittent, high-intensity racket sport in which repetitive, solo drills are used frequently by many of the top professionals. However, they are used much less frequently by players of lower levels, indicating a lack of motivation when a coach is not present. These two use cases, from different domains, are considered in the same body of work due to the similarities in the individual, often unsupervised and repetitive nature of practice that helps in making long-term functional improvements after stroke and helps high performance sports players improve their skill level. This thesis contributes a cross-domain implementation of a robotic coach using the Pepper robot, which incorporates high-level personalisation to groups of users and low-level adaption to individuals over time. The development process combined quantitative data from systematic observations and qualitative recommendations from domain professionals during semi-structured interviews, with mathematical modelling and computation techniques to produce coaching policies usable for robotic control. Short-term evaluations in squash and stroke rehabilitation validated the novel cross-domain design and implementation process and revealed that the robotic coach was viewed by non-professional squash players as more interesting/enjoyable, more socially competent, and a more effective coach than a robot that didn’t offer any coaching behaviours. Finally, a long-term evaluation showed that Pepper was able to make solo squash sessions more interesting/enjoyable, gave users a higher sense of perceived choice, and allowed players to make larger technical improvements within sessions than during regular, unsupervised practice.