Smart Teddy: Elderly monitoring and support system using ambient intelligence

Human Interaction and Integration

Bachelor thesis (2021)

Authors

L.E. Croes Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
S. Haggerty Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Contributors

Z. Al-Ars Computer Engineering - EEMCS (mentor)
Zaid Al-Ars Computer Engineering - EEMCS (mentor)
Hani Al-ers The Hague University of Applied Sciences (mentor)
C.M. Jonker Interactive Intelligence - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
M. Moller Numerical Analysis - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
M. Möller Numerical Analysis - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Matthias Möller Numerical Analysis - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Matthias Moller Numerical Analysis - EEMCS (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Copyright: © 2021 Laura Croes, Shea Haggerty
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Published Date

30-06-2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Abstract

In September 2018, the Smart Teddy project was founded by a group of researchers within the Hague University of Applied Sciences1 in the Netherlands. The Smart Teddy project is a multidisciplinary project aiming to create an interactive system, using a teddy bear as a focus point, which collects the data needed in order to enable seniors with dementia to live independently for a longer period of time. Over the last three years, three prototypes of the Smart Teddy have been developed. The Smart Teddy project was introduced as a final project for students following the BSc program Electrical Engineering at the Delft University of Technology. Starting in April 2021, a team of six students attempted to further develop the Smart Teddy over the course of 11 weeks.

This thesis contains the Human Interaction & Integration subdomain of the Smart Teddy thesis project, where Human Interaction refers to the aspects of the Teddy
that encourage interaction with the user, and Integration refers to the combination of all subdomains into one fully functioning prototype. In this thesis, the design choices, implementation methods and verification are discussed. The contribution to the prototype regarding Human Interaction & Integration are the addition of a movement system using pneumatics, the implementation of a flexible touch sensor, the ability for the Teddy to produce audio, to communicate
wirelessly with the Base Station, and for all components in the Teddy to
communicate with the main controller.

The final prototype has been implemented using the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, which was mounted on a custom PCB. All controls are provided by the Pico, and uses I2C, SPI, UART, and analog and digital inputs to communicate with the sensors and actuators. These sensors and actuators
were implemented using off-the-shelf breakout boards and drivers, to allow for fast design and test iterations. The movement of the Teddy has been implemented using air pumps and molded silicon rubber, and the tail wagging is implemented using the same principle used for soft robotic grippers. The final prototype is fully functional and meets 16 of the 20 requirements - the requirement concerning speech recognition and the noise produced by the pumps have not been met.

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