How Robin, the robotic companion, keeps patients calm during hospital visits

figure — robin is designed to support healthcare teams and patients. | In around 30 hospitals, dental clinics, and adult care facilities, this work is aided by Robin, a mobile robot from Expper Technologies.

Robin is a socially assistive robot that aims to enhance the emotional well-being of the people it interacts with. The robot is kid-sized, with a friendly face and a simply designed body. It moves around using a wheeled base and doesn’t have any arms or manipulators. The system does all of its interaction with the world through its speech. Glendale, Calif.-based Expper has developed a fictional backstory and distinct personality behind Robin. Davit Martirosyan, the co-founder and head of engineering at Expper, described the robot as a kid who’s very interested in doing different things and very open to learning new things. “Robin came from the universe to Earth, and it always wants to go back to the universe, see what it can see there, but it’s impossible for him,” Martirosyan told The Robot Report. “So, that means Robin has a dream, and he wants to know everyone, to meet everyone, become friends with everyone.” As a founder of Expper, Martirosyan has always been intimately familiar with Robin. But now, the therapeutic system is with him in his home. This means he is experiencing the technology both as an engineer and as part of his everyday life. Expper develops robot during the pandemic Expper started in 2019 and sold its first robots in early 2020, right as the COVID-19 pandemic started to shut things down. “We sold our first robot here in LA to a dental clinic, and we started to build that robot remotely. Imagine, it’s a hardware product,” Martirosyan. “We built [the robot] in one apartment. The software was in another apartment.