About What is the next step needed to enable Zoomorphic robots to be truly compelling pet alternatives for everyday people?
AZRAM,
Augmenting
Zoomorphic
Robots with
Affective Interactions using
Mixed Reality, is an
EPSRC IAA project tackling this question using a novel Mixed Reality development and deployment approach. This project is led by
Dr Shaun Macdonald and
Dr Mark McGill from the
Glasgow Interactive Systems Section (GIST) at the University of Glasgow School of Computing Science. AZRAM is being conducted in collaboration with the robot software partner
Synthiam and
Dr Salma Elsayed from Abertay University.
Background Running from January to December 2025, AZRAM will accelerate scientific understanding and development of emotional interactions between everyday users and robot pets. Keeping pets has been a human habit for thousands of years and can have many health and well-being benefits. There are, however, many people who are unable to keep or maintain pets due to financial, tenancy, health or other reasons. Robot pets could provide an alternative, helping to provide social comfort, lower stress and tackle loneliness.
Current robot pets feature a limited set of short-term generalised interactions and struggle to maintain rich long-term relationships with most users. These robots are primarily deployed in healthcare settings and, in addition, prototyping and developing robots is expensive and time-consuming, impeding the development needed to make Zoomorphic robots a truly viable alternative to household pets.