Towards Personal Service Robots for the Elderly

TLDR

Taking care of elderly and chronically ill people is one of the major challenges currently faced by society. The study aims to develop personal service robots for the elderly, addressing needs from articulation to dementia care, and to outline a research agenda for future development. The prototype uses natural‑language interfaces to deliver web‑based activity‑of‑daily‑living information and enables remote caregivers to establish tele‑presence via video and audio streaming over the Next Generation Internet. A first prototype robot has been developed to address the challenge.

Abstract

This paper describes the state-of-the art of a large-scale project, aimed towards the development of personal service robots for the elderly population. Taking care of elderly and chronically ill people is one of the major challenges currently faced by society. Needs range from increasing articulation to assisting those with dementia and cognitive impairment. To respond to this challenge, we have developed a first prototype robot. Using natural language, the robot can provide information related to activities of daily living obtained from the Web. It also enables remote care-givers to establish a “tele-presence” in people’s home, by relaying back video and audio stream through the Next Generation Internet. The paper describes this early prototype, and it lays out our research agenda towards building service robots for the elderly.