Robotic and Sensor Technologies for Mobility in Older People

Maintaining independent mobility is fundamental to independent living and to the quality of life of older people. Robotic and sensor technologies may offer a lot of potential and can make a significant difference in the lives of older people and to their primary caregivers. The aim of this study was to provide a presentation of the methods that are used up till now for analysis and evaluation of human mobility utilizing sensor technologies and to give the state of the art in robotic platforms for supporting older people with mobility limitations. The literature was reviewed and systematic reviews of cohort studies and other authoritative reports were identified. The selection criteria included (1) patients with age â\u89¥60 years; (2) patients with unstable gait, with or without recurrent falls; (3) patients with slow movements, short strides, and little trunk movement; (4) sensor technologies that are currently used for mobility evaluation; and (5) robotic technologies that can serve as a supporting companion for older people with mobility limitations. One hundred eighty-one studies published up until February 2017 were identified, of which 36 were included. Two categories of research were identified from the review regarding the robot and sensor technologies: (1) sensor technologies for mobility analysis and (2) robots for supporting older people with mobility limitations. Potential for robotic and sensor technologies can be taken advantage of for evaluation and support at home for elder persons with mobility limitations in an automated way without the need of the physical presence of any medical personnel, reducing the stress of caregivers

Service robotics: do you know your new companion? Framing an interdisciplinary technology assessment

Service-Robotic—mainly defined as “non-industrial robotics”—is identified as the next economical success story to be expected after robots have been ubiquitously implemented into industrial production lines. Under the heading of service-robotic, we found a widespread area of applications reaching from robotics in agriculture and in the public transportation system to service robots applied in private homes. We propose for our interdisciplinary perspective of technology assessment to take the human user/worker as common focus. In some cases, the user/worker is the effective subject acting by means of and in cooperation with a service robot; in other cases, the user/worker might become a pure object of the respective robotic system, for example, as a patient in a hospital. In this paper, we present a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework, which allows us to scrutinize some of the most relevant applications of service robotics; we propose to combine technical, economical, legal, philosophical/ethical, and psychological perspectives in order to design a thorough and comprehensive expert-based technology assessment. This allows us to understand the potentials as well as the limits and even the threats connected with the ongoing and the planned implementation of service robots into human lifeworld—particularly of those technical systems displaying increasing grades of autonomy

THE OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE WITH VERSATILITY BY USING COLOUR AND EDGE INFORMATION

本稿では、様々な床状態による利用が想定される障害物回避において、これに対応できる新しい障害物検出方法を提案し、これを様々な床状態において検証を行うことで、評価を行った。画像処理による障害物回避において、障害物を検出する方法として、エッジ情報を用いた障害物検出がある。しかし、これは抽出されたエッジ情報を、全て障害物と仮定することで障害物の検出を行うため、床の状態が均一であることが前提条件となる。しかし、現実では、床の状態が均一でないことが多いため、汎用性に欠けた手法となっている。そこで、様々な床状態に対応できる障害物検出が必要である。本研究では、色情報をベースとし、これにエッジ情報による補助情報を用いることで、汎用性の高い障害物回避システムを目指す。修士論

Design and Development of the eBear: A Socially Assistive Robot for Elderly People with Depression

There has been tremendous progress in the field of robotics in the past decade and especially developing humanoid robots with social abilities that can assist human at a socio-emotional level. The objective of this thesis is to develop and study a perceptive and expressive animal-like robot equipped with artificial intelligence in assisting the elderly people with depression. We investigated how social robots can become companions of elderly individuals with depression and improve their mood and increase their happiness and well-being. The robotic platform built in this thesis is a bear-like robot called the eBear. The eBear can show facial expression and head gesture, can understand user\u27s emotion using audio-video sensory inputs and machine learning, can speak and show relatively accurate visual speech, and make dialog with users. the eBear can respond to their questions by querying the Internet, and even encourage them to physically be more active and even perform simple physical exercises. Besides building the robot, the eBear was used in running a pilot study in which seven elderly people with mild to severe depression interacted with the eBear for about 45 minutes three times a week over one month. The results of the study show that interacting with the eBear can increase happiness and mood of these human users as measured by Face Scale, and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) score systems. In addition, using Almere Model, it was concluded that the acceptance of the social agent increased over the study period. Videos of the users interaction with the eBear was analyzed and eye gaze, and facial expressions were manually annotated to better understand the behavior changes of users with the eBear. Results of these analyses as well as the exit surveys completed by the users at the end of the study demonstrate that a social robot such as the eBear can be an effective companion for the elderly people and can be a new approach for depression treatment

Evaluation of artificial mouths in social robots

The external aspects of a robot affect how people behave and perceive it while interacting. In this paper, we study the importance of the mouth displayed by a social robot and explore how different designs of an artificial LED-based mouths alter the participants' judgments of a robot's attributes and their attention to the robot's message. We evaluated participants' judgments of a speaking robot under four conditions: 1) without a mouth; 2) with a static smile; 3) with a vibrating, wave-shaped mouth; and 4) with a moving, human-like mouth. A total of 79 participants evaluated their perceptions of an on-video robot showing one of the four conditions. The results show that the presence of a mouth, as well as its design, alters the perception of the robot. In particular, the presence of a mouth makes the robot to be perceived more lifelike and less sad. The human-like mouth was the one participants liked the most and, along with the smile, they were the friendliest ones. On the contrary, participants rated the mouthless robot and the one with the wave-like mouth as the most dangerous ones.Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (DPI2014-57684-R); in part by the MOnarCH, funded by the European Commission (Grant Agreement 601033); and in part by the RoboCity2030-III-CM, funded by the Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by the Structural Funds of the EU (S2013/MIT-2748)

Los Robots de asistencia social en la atención a la población mayor de Japón

Introducción: El envejecimiento demográfico constituye uno de los desafíos más relevantes que enfrentan nuestras sociedades del siglo XXI. Esta situación, genera una creciente demanda de atención a las personas mayores a la vez que disminuye el personal necesario. Entre las diversas soluciones que se están investigando para abordar esta escasez, destacamos el uso de los robots para apoyar al personal en su labor. Desde el ámbito de la gerontología social, el presente estudio se enfoca en las intervenciones con Robots de Asistencia Social en Japón, al ser el país con mayor envejecimiento demográfico en la actualidad y el mayor promotor de la robótica asistencial desde el ámbito gubernamental.Metodología: Para realizar la búsqueda de los artículos se utilizó la declaración PRISMA. Se utilizaron las bases de datos electrónicas de Cochrane Library, PubMed, Scopus y Web of Sciences. Según la estrategia de búsqueda se obtuvieron 144 resultados.Resultados y discusión: 7 artículos cumplieron los requisitos de inclusión y exclusión, y todos fueron ensayos clínicos redactados en inglés. Las intervenciones fueron muy diversas, incluyendo el fomento de las interacciones verbales, las habilidades no verbales, la administración de evaluaciones cognitivas y el estudio del impacto del sexo, edad y estado de demencia en las intervenciones con Robots de Asistencia Social en personas mayores. Implementar una perspectiva ética en esta clase de intervenciones es fundamental para salvaguardar la dignidad y los derechos de las personas mayores.Conclusiones: Los Robots de Asistencia Social son una herramienta útil para atender las demandas de la población mayor y mejorar su bienestar. El sector más beneficiado en este estudio son las personas mayores con deterioro cognitivo leve. La experiencia y planificación a largo plazo que está realizando Japón para adaptarse al envejecimiento demográfico le convierten en un referente para países en situaciones similares como España. Palabras clave: "robots de Asistencia Social"; "deterioro cognitivo"; "Japón";"envejecimiento de la población".<br /