Nonverbal children can encounter challenges in expressing their basic needs, particularly in the bustling environment of a childcare center where they may easily go unnoticed. The objective of this thesis is to leverage a NAO Robot for the automatic identification of Nonverbal Communication Cards (NCC) utilized by these children. Such cards feature symbols representing specific needs or intentions, allowing the child to communicate desires such as "I am hungry," "I need to use the toilet," "Yes," "No," and more.

In this thesis, the student is developing a system aimed at detecting and verbalizing the child's intentions through NCCs. This system involves the collaboration between the NAO and an Android tablet. Given the intended use in the dynamic setting of a childcare center, the emphasis of the research lies in ensuring the system's stress resistance. The student will inform their development through the latest knowledge from relevant scientific literature and will evaluate it in a user study upon completion. Successful completion requires good to very good programming skills in Python or Java. While a basic understanding of robotics and human-robot interaction is advantageous, it is not mandatory. The research offers intensive, personalized supervision and the opportunity to contribute to current research areas.

This work should contribute to the growing body of work on the interaction of social robots and children. If the student is interested, they can engage together with the advisor/supervisor in submitting the thesis as part of a paper to appropriate publication outlets.

Successful completion requires good to very good programming skills in Python or Java. While a basic understanding of robotics and human-robot interaction is advantageous, it is not mandatory. The student should be interested in robots and motivated to support the target group through their thesis.