The IM-TWIN project aims to develop some of the outcomes of a previous EU basic research project, “GOAL-Robots”, towards market exploitation. GOAL-Robots aimed to study how intrinsic motivations (“curiosity”) drive exploration and learning in children, and how such processes can be used to develop innovative autonomous robots. This led to the conception of the idea that intrinsic motivations can be used to build engaging interactive robots usable for the treatment of children with developmental disorders, in particular within the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD is a neurodevelopmental condition with dramatic importance for the well-being of society: recent reviews about epidemiology show how a significant part of the population in developed countries is diagnosed with this condition (estimates range from 1 in 67 to 1 in 132). Led by this idea, we developed a “wearable companion robot” usable for the early treatment of ASD, called “PlusMe”, now at the prototype stage. This prototype was further developed within a second EU project called “PlusMe: Transitional wearable companions for the therapy with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders” (as the prototype), starting earlier and now running in parallel with IM-TWIN (PlusMe).
In continuation with these initiatives, the IM-TWIN project is carrying out two sets of objectives. The first is to develop a highly-modular system pivoting on the PlusMe, called “IM-TWIN” (as the project itself), addressing the needs of the market segment involving ASD children, therapy centres and, potentially, families of ASD children. The new IM-TWIN system involves different components and implements different functionalities: (a) integrating the PlusMe with biosensors, in particular by embedding them into a new sensorised T-shirt worn by the children for detecting the child’s affective/emotional states; (b) embedding cameras in the environment, for face expression recognition; (c) endowing the PlusMe with basic intelligent behaviour; (d) and integrating all components as a whole IoT system that allows the parallel synchronised collection of data from the users, usable for on-line and off-line screening, monitoring, therapy, and research. The second set of objectives aims to: (a) validate the device and its components with target stakeholders: ASD children under therapy, therapy centres, and families.
