Public entities driven robotic innovation in urban areas

Cities present new challenges and needs to satisfy and improve lifestyle for their citizens under the concept “Smart City”. In order to achieve this goal in a global manner, new technologies are required as the robotic one. But Public entities unknown the possibilities offered by this technology to get solutions to their needs. In this paper the development of the Innovative Public Procurement instruments is explained, specifically the process PDTI (Public end Users Driven Technological Innovation) as a driving force of robotic research and development and offering a list of robotic urban challenges proposed by European cities that have participated in such a process. In the next phases of the procedure, this fact will provide novel robotic solutions addressed to public demand that are an example to be followed by other Smart Cities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Artificial Intelligence in Smart Tourism: A Conceptual Framework

Smart tourism destination as: an innovative tourist destination, built on an infrastructure of state-of-the-art technology guaranteeing the sustainable development of tourist areas, accessible to everyone, which facilitates the visitor’s interaction with and integration into his or her surroundings, increases the quality of the experience at the destination, and improves residents’ quality of life. Lopez de Avila (2015). Smart tourism involves multiple components and layers of “smart” include (1) Smart Destinations which was special cases of smart cities integration of ICT’s into physical infrastructure, (2) Smart experience which specifically focus on technology-mediated tourism experience and their engagement through personalization, context-awareness and real-time monitoring, (3) Smart business refer to the complex business ecosystem that creates and supports the exchange of touristic resource and the co-creation of tourism experience. Gretzel et al, (2015). Smart tourism also clearly relies on the ability to not only collect enormous of data but to intelligently store, process, combine, analyze and use big data to inform business innovation, operations and services by artificial intelligence and big data technique. The rapid development of information communication technology (ICT) such as artificial intelligent, cloud computing, mobile device, big data mining and social media cause computing, storage and communication relevant software and hardware popular. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google have risen rapidly since 2000. In recent years, Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Thing, Robotic, Cyber Security, 3D printer and Block chain also accelerate the development of industry toward digital transformation trend such as Fintech, e-commerce, smart cities, smart tourism, smart healthcare, smart manufacturing... This study proposes a conceptual framework that integrates (1) artificial intelligence/machine learning, (2) institution/organizational and (3) business processes to assist smart tourism stake holder to leverage artificial intelligence to integrate cross-departmental business and streamline key performance metrics to build a business-level IT Strategy. Artificial intelligence as long as the function includes (1) Cognitive engagement to (voice/pattern recognition function) (2) Cognitive process automation (Robotic Process Automation) (3) Cognitive insight (forecast, recommendation)

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

AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs

This report is the latest in a sustained effort throughout 2014 by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project to mark the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (The Web at 25).The report covers experts' views about advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and their impact on jobs and employment

Robot-era project: Preliminary results on the system usability

The European project Robot-Era is an ambitious integrated project (FP7-ICT-2011.5.4), which objective is the development of advanced robotic services, integrated in intelligent environments, to provide independent living to older people. In order to guarantee the matching of the users� need and the demands, two loops of experimentation were conceived, in realistic and real setting. The aim of the paper is to described the methods applied and the main results coming from the first experimental loop, concerning the degree of usability of the interfaces and provide guidelines for testing socially assistive robots with older people. � Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Robotic services acceptance in smart environments with older adults: user satisfaction and acceptability study.

In Europe, the population of older people is increasing rapidly. Many older people prefer to remain in their homes but living alone could be a risk for their safety. In this context, robotics and other emerging technologies are increasingly proposed as potential solutions to this societal concern. However, one-third of all assistive technologies are abandoned within one year of use because the end users do not accept them. The aim of this study is to investigate the acceptance of the Robot-Era system, which provides robotic services to permit older people to remain in their homes. Six robotic services were tested by 35 older users. The experiments were conducted in three different environments: private home, condominium, and outdoor sites. The appearance questionnaire was developed to collect the users' first impressions about the Robot-Era system, whereas the acceptance was evaluated through a questionnaire developed ad hoc for Robot-Era. A total of 45 older users were recruited. The people were grouped in two samples of 35 participants, according to their availability. Participants had a positive impression of Robot-Era robots, as reflected by the mean score of 73.04 (SD 11.80) for DORO's (domestic robot) appearance, 76.85 (SD 12.01) for CORO (condominium robot), and 75.93 (SD 11.67) for ORO (outdoor robot). Men gave ORO's appearance an overall score higher than women (P=.02). Moreover, participants younger than 75 years understood more readily the functionalities of Robot-Era robots compared to older people (P=.007 for DORO, P=.001 for CORO, and P=.046 for ORO). For the ad hoc questionnaire, the mean overall score was higher than 80 out of 100 points for all Robot-Era services. Older persons with a high educational level gave Robot-Era services a higher score than those with a low level of education (shopping: P=.04; garbage: P=.047; reminding: P=.04; indoor walking support: P=.006; outdoor walking support: P=.03). A higher score was given by male older adults for shopping (P=.02), indoor walking support (P=.02), and outdoor walking support (P=.03). Based on the feedback given by the end users, the Robot-Era system has the potential to be developed as a socially acceptable and believable provider of robotic services to facilitate older people to live independently in their homes. [Abstract copyright: ©Filippo Cavallo, Raffaele Esposito, Raffaele Limosani, Alessandro Manzi, Roberta Bevilacqua, Elisa Felici, Alessandro Di Nuovo, Angelo Cangelosi, Fabrizia Lattanzio, Paolo Dario. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 21.09.2018.

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 Future of Work In Cities

The latest report in our City of the Future series examines societal shifts and advancements in technology that are impacting the rapidly changing American workforce. The report outlines solutions to help city leaders plan for the fast-approaching future, while forecasting the economic viability of two distinct sectors – retail and office administration – in which a quarter of Americans are currently employed