223 research outputs found
Multidisciplinary approach for developing a new robotic system for domiciliary assistance to elderly people
This paper aims to show the effectiveness of a
(inter / multi)disciplinary team, based on the technology
developers, elderly care organizations, and designers, in
developing the ASTRO robotic system for domiciliary
assistance to elderly people. The main issues presented in this
work concern the improvement of robot’s behavior by means of
a smart sensor network able to share information with the
robot for localization and navigation, and the design of the
robot’s appearance and functionalities by means of a
substantial analysis of users’ requirements and attitude to
robotic technology to improve acceptability and usability
On the design, development and experimentation of the ASTRO assistive robot integrated in smart environments
This paper presents the full experience of
designing, developing and testing ASTROMOBILE, a system
composed of an enhanced robotic platform integrated in an
Ambient Intelligent (AmI) infrastructure that was conceived to
provide favourable independent living, improved quality of life
and efficiency of care for senior citizens. The design and
implementation of ASTRO robot was sustained by a
multidisciplinary team in which technology developers,
designers and end-user representatives collaborated using a
user-centred design approach. The key point of this work is to
demonstrate the general feasibility and scientific/technical
effectiveness of a mobile robotic platform integrated in a smart
environment and conceived to provide useful services to humans
and in particular to elderly people in domestic environments.
The main aspects faced in this paper are related to the design of
the ASTRO’s appearance and functionalities by means of a
substantial analysis of users’ requirements, the improvement of
the ASTRO’s behaviour by means of a smart sensor network
able to share information with the robot (Ubiquitous Robotics)
and the development of advanced human robot interfaces based
on natural language
A Planner for Ambient Assisted Living: From High-Level Reasoning to Low-Level Robot Execution and Back
Robot ecologies are a growing paradigm in which one or several robotic systems are integrated into a smart environment. Robotic ecologies hold great promises for elderly assistance. Planning the activities of these systems, however, is not trivial, and requires consideration of issues like temporal and information dependencies among different parts of the ecology, exogenous actions, and multiple, dynamic goals. We describe a planner able to cope with the above challenges. We show in particular how this planner has been incorporated in closed-loop into a full robotic system that performs daily tasks in support of elderly people. The full robot ecology is deployed in a test apartment inside a real residential building, and it is currently undergoing an extensive user evaluation
Supporting active and healthy aging with advanced robotics integrated in smart environment
The technological advances in the robotic and ICT fields represent an effective solution to address specific societal problems to support ageing and independent life. One of the key factors for these technologies is the integration of service robotics for optimising social services and improving quality of life of the elderly population. This chapter aims to underline the barriers of the state of the art, furthermore the authors present their concrete experiences to overcome these barriers gained at the RoboTown Living Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna within past and current projects. They analyse and discuss the results in order to give recommendations based on their experiences. Furthermore, this work highlights the trend of development from stand-alone solutions to cloud computing architecture, describing the future research directions
Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities
Research and development work relating to assistive technology
2010-11 (Department of Health)
Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197
Innovation in rehabilitation technology: technological opportunities and socio-economic implications
Innovation in stroke rehabilitation technology is discussed that,
based on published epidemiological and economic data, represents an urgent case to deal with adopting a multidisciplinary perspective. A theoretical model is proposed for the evaluation of socioeconomic implications related to an early diagnosis and early and timely adjustments in the stroke treatment strategy. The
model is applied to the case of a new rehabilitation technology: the ALLADIN diagnostic device. The model compares a traditional approach – ‘trial and error strategy’ – to the innovative one – ‘in progress evaluation’, considering the diagnostic and rehabilitative steps of the patient’s assistive route and assessing social and economic benefits of the innovative device. The new technology allows a precise initial assessment of both the severity of stroke and the level of lost functionality, as long as an evaluation of the expected return from different potential therapies. Moreover, supposing that higher severity of stroke implies higher level of disabilities and social costs, and that the negative impact
increases as the level of disability increases, the use of innovative rehabilitation technologies would be more effective in the case of patients with severe and very severe stroke
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