A Study on Augmented Reality-based Virtual Pets for the Elderly Living Alone

Due to recent industrialization and nuclear family, the population of the elderly living alone is rapidly increasing. Elderly people living alone are prone to suffering from loneliness and depression, and one way to solve this is known to have a companion animal. However, since raising a companion animal requires a sacrifice of time and money, this paper proposes a method of raising a virtual pet by introducing augmented reality technology with IoT. Additionally, the proposed method improves the quality of life of the elderly living alone by introducing the functions of rehabilitation, mental and physical stability, and living convenience.