Social robot Navel - the innovative conversation partner for senior citizens

“Hello, what's your name?” asks the little robot, which, with its blue knitted cap and orange dress, looks a bit like a small child. ‘My name is Birgit,’ replies the elderly lady, who is already over 90 years old and has been living in a nursing home for some time. ‘Birgit, how nice to see you again. How was your day at the nursing home?’ asks the robot. “I'm fine today,” replies his conversation partner with a smile on her face. ‘I'm glad to hear that,’ replies Navel – this scene is a prime example of how our customers use new technology. It shows that our customers are also intensively engaging with AI and new technologies and are making use of them to some extent.

Whether it's jokes, poems, small talk or a deep conversation, the little social robot called Navel has it all down. He is no ordinary robot, but programmed to understand and respond to human interactions. What makes him special are his non-verbal skills. He can recognize the emotions of his conversation partner from their facial expressions, and in the future also from their body language and tone of voice, and determine whether a person is happy, sad or stressed. Navel uses this information to react appropriately to the person he is talking to. This makes communication with him very human-like and people can interact with him intuitively. “I think that's very nice,” says an interested resident of a retirement home where Navel is currently being used as part of a pilot project. “Because there are a lot of people here who are very lonely and have begun to feel down.” Unfortunately, this has become part of everyday life in retirement and nursing homes, as a result of staff shortages and the fact that staff simply don't have the time to talk to residents and listen to them for longer.

Speech, face and emotion recognition

Navel was developed by navel robotics to help alleviate the heavy workload of caregivers and to keep people company. Behind it is company founder Claude Toussaint, who was previously co-owner of the design and product development agency designaffairs, where he developed numerous digital products. “In my previous developments, people always had to learn how to use and operate the technology,” says Claude Toussaint. ‘After selling my agency, I wanted to develop a product in which the technology learns how people work so that it is particularly intuitive to use – that's how the idea for Navel was born.’ This is made possible by a highly developed AI platform that combines speech and face recognition, emotion recognition and adaptive learning abilities. This technology enables Navel to hold conversations on highly complex topics, capture moods and adapt to the individual needs of its counterpart. Through continuous learning and adaptation, he can improve and personalize his interactions.

Since eye contact is the foundation of every social interaction, Navel has been equipped with three-dimensional eyeballs that no other robot has. Since he recognizes where the eyes of his conversation partner are located via the camera, he can follow his gaze and look him directly in the eye during the conversation. He appears particularly authentic due to his human head movements and his mimic expressiveness, which is almost limitless. In addition to the basic emotions, Navel can also use grimaces and gestures and interpolate between them seamlessly. He shows natural fluctuations depending on the situation, which make him appear particularly human.

“Superpowers” help against loneliness

“Navel is not just a toy, he can really do something,” says a nurse who has already gained initial experience with the social robot. Although humans have some abilities that surpass those of technical helpers, there are also areas in which social robots are better: Among other things, they have endless patience, always remain friendly and empathetic, and pay endless attention to patients. These “superpowers” demonstrably relieve the burden on nursing staff, whose workload has increased immensely due to a shortage of skilled workers. But he not only alleviates loneliness, he has also proven his skills with dementia patients, whose cognitive, physical, emotional and social abilities need to be activated so that they are not lost. So it is important to exercise regularly and often. And this is where Navel comes in. Not only is he active around the clock, but soon he will also be able to approach patients independently to talk to them about a wide range of topics. However, to activate patients in the advanced stages of dementia, he needs the support of caregivers who themselves enjoy interacting with Navel.

So far, Navel is still a pre-series product that is being tested in various pilot projects. In addition to retirement and nursing homes, he has recently started working for the first time in a facility for people with disabilities, to find out together with the developers whether he could also be helpful in this area. Navel has already impressively demonstrated that he is able to support the provision of good care and relieve the burden on nursing staff. That is why, in June of this year, it was awarded the Novartis Digital Health Prize, with the jury recognizing and rewarding the robot's many possible uses.