Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

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

The Ethical Implications of Employing Socially Assitive Robots in the Aged-care Sector in Japan

Ground-breaking innovations in technology depict a promising future for humanity. In particular, the robotic industry is expected to solve many of our modern challenges especially with regard to the health sector. As expected, when introducing human-robot interactions in our daily lives, we need to renegotiate our human values in terms of autonomy, control and privacy. This paper aims to explore the ethical dilemmas occurring when employing socially assistive robots in the aged-care sector. It will also make recommendations for future ethical use of social robots. The cultural background is set in Japan, a leader in robotic development.“Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted under the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC BY-SA) license and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page” Connection with SDG 9The Sustainable Development Goals number 9 refers to building resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation. These actions are highly dependent on technological innovations. In order to create long-term sustainable structures, we need to welcome advancements in our life but in the same time treat them carefully. This paper tackles one of the recent technological advancements in the field of robotics. Socially Assitive Robots have been designed to help children, people with disabilities and elders in a social, non-intrusive and positive way. In spite of this, ethical dilemmas which clash with the design of the robots are not often taken into account. That is why, the research is meant to fill in the gap and prove that an ethical sustainable goal can be met by responsible advancements in technology

Averting Robot Eyes

Home robots will cause privacy harms. At the same time, they can provide beneficial services—as long as consumers trust them. This Essay evaluates potential technological solutions that could help home robots keep their promises, avert their eyes, and otherwise mitigate privacy harms. Our goals are to inform regulators of robot-related privacy harms and the available technological tools for mitigating them, and to spur technologists to employ existing tools and develop new ones by articulating principles for avoiding privacy harms. We posit that home robots will raise privacy problems of three basic types: (1) data privacy problems; (2) boundary management problems; and (3) social/relational problems. Technological design can ward off, if not fully prevent, a number of these harms. We propose five principles for home robots and privacy design: data minimization, purpose specifications, use limitations, honest anthropomorphism, and dynamic feedback and participation. We review current research into privacy-sensitive robotics, evaluating what technological solutions are feasible and where the harder problems lie. We close by contemplating legal frameworks that might encourage the implementation of such design, while also recognizing the potential costs of regulation at these early stages of the technology

Acceptance of ambient assisted living (AAL) technologies among older Australians : a review of barriers in user experience

One of the great challenges facing Australian society is that of an ageing population. Amongst the issues involved in this drastic demographic change, the most significant aspect is the demand for older Australians to live independently at home. The development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies aims to address this issue. The advancement of AAL applications have been done to support the users with their daily-life activities and health concerns by providing increased mobility, security, safety in emergencies, health-monitoring, improved lifestyle, and fall-detection through the use of sensors. However, the optimum uptake of these technologies among the end-users (the elderly Australians) still remains a big concern. Thus, there is an elevated need to understand the needs and preferences of the seniors in order to improve the acceptance of AAL applications. The aim of this study is to investigate the barriers and perceptions in the use of AAL applications amongst older Australians. Focus groups and quantitative surveys have been conducted to provide a detailed analysis of these impediments. The results show that there are different factors that restrict the use of these technologies along with the fact that elderly people have certain preferences when using them. An understanding of these factors has been gained and suggestions have been made to increase the acceptance of AAL devices. This work gives useful insights towards the design of AAL solutions according to user needs

Granny and the robots: ethical issues in robot care for the elderly

The growing proportion of elderly people in society, together with recent advances in robotics, makes the use of robots in elder care increasingly likely. We outline developments in the areas of robot applications for assisting the elderly and their carers, for monitoring their health and safety, and for providing them with companionship. Despite the possible benefits, we raise and discuss six main ethical concerns associated with: the potential reduction in the amount of human contact; an increase in the feelings of objectification and loss of control; a loss of privacy; a loss of personal liberty; deception and infantilisation; the circumstances in which elderly people should be allowed to control robots. We conclude by balancing the care benefits against the ethical costs. If introduced with foresight and careful guidelines, robots and robotic technology could improve the lives of the elderly, reducing their dependence, and creating more opportunities for social interactio

Robots and human dignity: A consideration of the effects of robot care on the dignity of older people

This paper explores the relationship between dignity and robot care for older people. It highlights the disquiet that is often expressed about failures to maintain the dignity of vulnerable older people, but points out some of the contradictory uses of the word 'dignity'. Certain authors have resolved these contradictions by identifying different senses of dignity; contrasting the inviolable dignity inherent in human life to other forms of dignity which can be present to varying degrees. The capability approach (CA) is introduced as a different but tangible account of what it means to live a life worthy of human dignity. It is used here as a framework for the assessment of the possible effects of eldercare robots on human dignity. The CA enables the identification of circumstances in which robots could enhance dignity by expanding the set of capabilities that are accessible to frail older people. At the same time, it is also possible within its framework to identify ways in which robots could have a negative impact, by impeding the access of older people to essential capabilities. It is concluded that the CA has some advantages over other accounts of dignity, but that further work and empirical study is needed in order to adapt it to the particular circumstances and concerns of those in the latter part of their lives

Robots in Service and Nursing Care - An Investigation into Japan’s Robot Use and Development

Postponed access: the file will be accessible after 2020-11-30We are currently seeing a rapid growth in the investment and development of robots to assist or replace human workers and efforts in many aspects of life. Due to Japan’s proportionally large and growing elderly population along with a shrinking workforce, the Japanese government has chosen to promote the research, development, and use of robots in fields such as nursing care. Other countries are also facing the same problems as Japan but have not chosen to promote the alternative futuristic solution to the same extent. In a pursuit to better understand the impact that robots already have and will have on society and everyday life, we have researched the topic of assistive robots in the service and nursing care context. Through a design science framework and mixed methods approach, performing semi-structured interviews with robot developers, professors in robotics and nursing care staff, observations on the use of robots in real-life settings, case studies, and one experiment, we have developed a comprehensive analysis and understanding of the research problem. To analyze the data, content analysis and the grounded theory were used. An experiment and two case studies were used to investigate attitudes, perceived benefits, and disadvantages of using robots. Furthermore, interviews and observations were conducted at nursing care facilities to investigate the possibility of assisting or even substituting humans with robots in settings that usually require a sense of human warmth and care. Previous research often focusses on individual robots or on literature review without field data. It would seem like the literature is lacking a deeper perspective, while at the same time, painting a wider picture of the domain itself. Therefore, this research investigated the development and experiences with robots that already exist and have been tested in real-world settings. The findings of the study summarized the literature on robots in nursing care, attitudes towards robots across countries and Japan’s strategy for further integrating robots into their society. Other results include real experience with the use of robots in nursing facilities and theories grounded in the ideas and thoughts behind the development of robots commonly used today. An experiment exploring empathy towards robots demonstrated the distinctiveness of robots, as compared to dolls, in enhanced empathy towards them. Two case studies captured views from university students and primary school pupils based on interaction with the humanoid robot Pepper. Pupils found Pepper to be useful and likable, while university students found the interaction to be fun, but frustrating at times. Based on the field studies, we could conclude that Japanese robot developers and researches recommend robots to be inferior to users in terms of intelligence and relationship, but also capable of easy interaction and ideally reading between lines in communication. In nursing care, robots are currently taking the role of pets (Paro and Qoobo), a child (Pepper, Paro, PALRO, RoBoHon, and Smibi) and even as a staff member (Pepper), capable of entertaining and accompanying elderly to help with mental well-being. There might be a current lack of ethical and safety standards for such robots. However, safety and ethical issues are considered by developers and professors in terms of privacy, deception, attachment, mechanical safety. Current robots have different levels of cognitive capacities depending on purpose and interaction style. Goals for the future include improvement in aspects such as intelligence, marketing strategies, and educating users on robots’ capabilities and limitations.Masteroppgave i informasjonsvitenskapINFO390MASV-IKTMASV-INF

Socially Assistive Robots for Older Adults and People with Autism: An Overview

Over one billion people in the world suffer from some form of disability. Nevertheless, according to the World Health Organization, people with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to deficiencies in services, such as health care, rehabilitation, support, and assistance. In this sense, recent technological developments can mitigate these deficiencies, offering less-expensive assistive systems to meet users’ needs. This paper reviews and summarizes the research efforts toward the development of these kinds of systems, focusing on two social groups: older adults and children with autism.This research was funded by the Spanish Government TIN2016-76515-R grant for the COMBAHO project, supported with Feder funds. It has also been supported by Spanish grants for PhD studies ACIF/2017/243 and FPU16/00887

Designing connected play: Perspectives from combining industry and academic know-how. In: Chaudron S., Di Gioia R., Gemo M., Holloway D., Marsh J., Mascheroni G., Peter J., Yamada-Rice D. Kaleidoscope on the Internet of Toys - Safety, security, privacy and societal insights, EUR 28397 EN, doi:10.2788/05383

Academics, designers and producers tend to consider the evolving Internet of Toys (IoToys) from within their individual disciplines. On the one hand, academics bring a long history of researching and theorizing play and communication practices to the task of considering young children’s use of connected toys. On the other hand, designers and producers of connected toys have detailed understanding of the possibilities and affordances of technology, as well as the technical mechanics involved in toy production. In other words, they know what it is possible to make, and what it is not possible to make. Industry also has an eye on trends in digital toy production and content, and how these are likely to evolve. This is because the digital play industry track data on technology usage and media consumption, and so on. These are things that academics are often a step behind in understanding because of a tendency to consider children’s use of an end product. However, my work across academia and the commercial toy and digital content industry has taught me that the amount of expertise companies have of child development and theories around play and communication practices is extremely varied and start-up companies in particular have little resource to conduct in-house research. This means that some connected toys are not as well made for young users as they could be. However, these crossovers have also taught me that sometimes academics call for changes to designs that are not easily possible or commercially viable. Therefore, regular collaboration between academia and industry would aid production of the best possible connected toys and content for young children