A companion robot designed to help dementia patients locate lost items — keys, medicine or glasses, for instance — has been developed by engineers from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

To develop the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven companion robot, the team employed a Fetch mobile manipulator robot, which is outfitted with an arm capable of manipulating objects and that possesses multiple sensors and cameras.

Source: University of Waterloo

The companion robot was then programmed with an object-detection algorithm that enables it to detect and track specific objects entering its field of vision.

According to the engineers, users can select the objects they want to track via a graphical interface on both smartphones or computers. In the event that the item in question needs to be located, users can search for it via the graphical interface, which reportedly prompts the robot to indicate when and where the object was last seen.

Although the companion robot is being eyed particularly for assisting dementia patients, the Waterloo team suggests that the robot could also be used to help people without dementia to locate lost items.

An article detailing the robot, “Where is My Phone?: Towards Developing an Episodic Memory Model for Companion Robots to Track Users' Salient Objects,” appears in the journal ACM.