Hyodol Robot

Why in news? 

• The South Korean government is reported to have deployed around 7,000 Hyodol dolls to keep senior citizens ‘company’ and remind them to take medications. Loneliness among senior citizens is a growing social issue in South Korea.

About Hyodol Robot

• These look like cuddly soft toys, their advanced language processing and ability to recognise emotions, talk, and play music can offer some form of engagement to seniors.
• It is an AI care robot that offers customised care for seniors.
• The robot does this by relying on data collected by living and having conversations with them.
• The doll can hold full conversations and it comes with a companion app and web monitoring platform for caretakers to monitor remotely.
• Besides, it comes with safety features that can raise an alert when no movement has been detected for a certain period of time.
• It also comes with touch interaction, check-ins, a health coach, voice messages, 24-hour voice reminders, music, quizzes, exercise suggestions, and more.
• Moreover, caregivers with access to the app will be able to send and receive voice messages, make group announcements, and monitor motion detection.
• The robot also continuously monitors the health condition of its users through health Q&A two times a day.
• This robot collects verbal/nonverbal data for 24 hours from the users through AI.
• Technology used
  • The AI robot can hold conversations owing to the large language model that has been integrated into it.
  • The robots provide convenient and easily managed intelligent services for users and are easy to develop and debug.
  • Besides, the AI robot can be linked to smart home devices and comes with an interface for easy interactions for all users.

Q1) What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?

It refers to an integrated system of physical objects (things) embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data within the systems over the “internet”. The physical objects used in the IoT range from ordinary household objects to sophisticated industrial tools connected to the internet via embedded devices.

Source: Meet Hyodol, an AI social robot to help senior citizens beat loneliness