AR Pet Pals

Keywords

Section 003, Unity 3D, Mobile Game, Augmented Reality, Object Recognition AI, Natural Language Model, Android

Project Abstract

ARPetPals is a mobile augmented reality (AR) application designed for Android and iOS smartphones. ARPetPals aims to aid users in their health and fitness journey in a fun and interactive way. ARPetPals allows users to adopt and interact with virtual pets in their real-world environments such as one’s desk at work. The virtual pet requires care, attention, and playtime, with their happiness and health metrics affected by user interactions. The game also leverages object recognition AI to enable virtual pets to interact with real-world objects, enhancing the gameplay experience. The health of the virtual pet is directly correlated with the user’s diet and exercise habits. Using object recognition, the game will recognize food a user is eating and record the nutrition information. The healthier the food, the more nourished a pet becomes. The app will remind users to nourish their pet throughout the day and to interact with it by exercising. The pet will become more fit and content based on a user's activity level. There is an interactive aspect to the game where the health of a virtual pet is displayed on a public leader board. This gives users incentive to keep up their pets' health status by adding a competitive nature to the game. The game also uses speech to text AI to give commands and interact with the virtual pet. ARPetPals will be developed using the Unity 3D game engine.

High Level Requirement

Users can adopt and customize their virtual pets. Virtual pets have happiness and health meters that change based on user interactions. Users can feed, give water, play with, and care for their virtual pets. Object recognition AI allows virtual pets to interact with real-world objects. Speech to text AI allows user to interact with the virtual pet with speech commands. The game must run smoothly on iOS smartphones. The user interface should be intuitive and mobile-friendly. Virtual pets should exhibit lifelike behaviors and responses.

Conceptual Design

Unity 3D will serve as the development platform. C# will be used for scripting within the Unity 3D engine. The application will be developed for Android and iOS operating systems. Object recognition AI and speech to text AI will be integrated to allow virtual pets to interact with real-world objects and a user’s food and activity .

Background

ARPetPals is a unique mobile AR game concept that combines virtual pet care with fitness, using augmented reality and object recognition. While there are several virtual pet simulation games available, the integration of AR and AI and focus on health sets ARPetPals apart. This app offers players a more immersive and interactive fitness experience. Based on a search on the iOS mobile app store a game called Peridot seems to be a similar product based on its AR spin on a pet game, but does not contain any AI features. The link for Peridot can be found here: https://playperidot.com/en .

Required Resources

Users need a mobile phone with a Rear-facing camera that has movement detection.

Hardware Required Android phone that supports version 8.0 (Oreo) or later Functional front facing camera Functional microphone and speaker

Development Environment Xcode (for macOS) and Visual Studio Code (for Windows) Unity Hub (for Unity 3D) Github and Jira - for Project and Code Management Reliable Database System

Deployment Format Compiled Binary (in APK for Android or IPA for iOS)