Where is My Phone? Towards Developing an Episodic Memory Model for Companion Robots to Track Users' Salient Objects

Abstract

Persons with Dementia face the issue of a deteriorating memory. As assistive robots are being increasingly adapted as a helper to persons with dementia, this paper presents an additional feature to such robots. Assistive robots that might assist with different tasks in users' households can also be utilized to track salient objects to quickly find them in case they are misplaced. This paper presents an episodic memory system that can enable a robot to recognize salient objects and track them while moving in and out of the environment. We also demonstrate how to develop access to the robot's memory in an easy-to-understand way using a graphical user interface (GUI). The proposed system is integrated with a Fetch mobile manipulator robot to track, store and visualize various household objects in an environment. Results from a system evaluation study are encouraging and the system will be further investigated in future co-design and user studies.