RUBY - A versatile and customizable social robot

The RUBYDemenz project investigated the effectiveness and optimization of personalized human-robot interaction, which serves as support and relief in the home care of people with dementia. The system, in the form of a puppet interacting with the user via voice, offers a low-threshold and playful integration into everyday life. It was developed by a consortium of various research institutions, companies, and social institutions and was carried out over a period of 42 months. The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences developed the technical system of the puppet. The consortium owns the rights, plans, and developed major parts of the software. The development of the system included the construction of the hardware, mechanics, and electronics, the software, and the interfaces to enable numerous functions. The system is versatile, flexibly expandable, and cost-effective, making it ideal for studies with many field deployments. Due to this properties, it can be easily adapted to various application scenarios making it a perfect system platform for social robot research efforts.