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

Enabling Global Robot Navigation Based on a Cloud Robotics Approach

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Development of a Socially Believable Multi-Robot Solution from Town to Home

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 that they have to be socially acceptable and believable to the end-users. This paper aimed to present some technological aspects that have been faced to develop the Robot-Era system, a multi-robotic system that is able to act in a socially believable way in the environments daily inhabited by humans, such as urban areas, buildings and homes. In particular, this paper focuses on two services—shopping delivery and garbage collection—showing preliminary results on experiments conducted with 35 elderly people. The analysis adopts an end-user-oriented perspective, considering some of the main attributes of acceptability: usability, attitude, anxiety, trust and quality of life

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.

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

Control strategies for cleaning robots in domestic applications: A comprehensive review:

Service robots are built and developed for various applications to support humans as companion, caretaker, or domestic support. As the number of elderly people grows, service robots will be in increasing demand. Particularly, one of the main tasks performed by elderly people, and others, is the complex task of cleaning. Therefore, cleaning tasks, such as sweeping floors, washing dishes, and wiping windows, have been developed for the domestic environment using service robots or robot manipulators with several control approaches. This article is primarily focused on control methodology used for cleaning tasks. Specifically, this work mainly discusses classical control and learning-based controlled methods. The classical control approaches, which consist of position control, force control, and impedance control , are commonly used for cleaning purposes in a highly controlled environment. However, classical control methods cannot be generalized for cluttered environment so that learning-based control methods could be an alternative solution. Learning-based control methods for cleaning tasks can encompass three approaches: learning from demonstration (LfD), supervised learning (SL), and reinforcement learning (RL). These control approaches have their own capabilities to generalize the cleaning tasks in the new environment. For example, LfD, which many research groups have used for cleaning tasks, can generate complex cleaning trajectories based on human demonstration. Also, SL can support the prediction of dirt areas and cleaning motion using large number of data set. Finally, RL can learn cleaning actions and interact with the new environment by the robot itself. In this context, this article aims to provide a general overview of robotic cleaning tasks based on different types of control methods using manipulator. It also suggest a description of the future directions of cleaning tasks based on the evaluation of the control approaches

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

Agile Co-Creation for Robots and Aging (ACCRA) Project

__Introduction__ Worldwide population is getting older. The older persons want to stay independent and wish to increase their engagement in social activities to tackle loneliness, depression, and isolation. Starting from these assumptions, we developed the ACCRA project (Agile Co-Creation for Robots and Aging) with the aim to enable the development of advanced ICT Robotics-based solutions for extending active and healthy aging in daily life by defining, developing and demonstrating an agile co-creation development process. __Methods__ ACCRA robotics solutions will be designed and developed to be tested in three different domains: mobility, daily life, socialization support in four countries (i.e., France, Netherlands, Italy, and Japan). The proposed approach identifies four different phases: (1) needs analysis, (2) agile co-creation, (3) experimentation, and (4) sustainability analysis. Currently, the first two phases were almost completed. For the needs phase, we have used the following recruitment criteria: (1) for mobility: age ≥ 60 years, the and presence of mobility issues assessed by Older Mobility Scale (EMS) with a score > 13; (2) for daily life: age ≥ 60 years, and the presence of difficulties engaging in housework assessed by Autonomie Gérontologie Groupes Iso-Ressources (AGGIR) with a GIR score ≥ 4; (3) for socialization support: age ≥ 60 years, and the absence or mild level of cognitive impairment assessed by Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) with a score ≥ 24. __Results__ The needs analysis and first co-creation sessions focus attention on the experience of older in the four countries. Preliminary results showed how, in all the pilot sites, many expectations were raised from older, formal and informal caregivers about the application of the technology into their life. Minor concerns existed about privacy, real efficacy and modularity in a real-world environment. Overall, a good attitude was recorded towards the use of technologies to support life and promote independent living. Moreover, the older engaged in our studies showed a great interest to be actively involved in the developing phase of something built based on their needs. __Conclusions__ The availability of new solutions to increase independence and quality of life in a sustainable manner appears to be mandatory in the actual society considering the actual socio-economic situation over the industrial countries

Off–label long acting injectable antipsychotics in real–world clinical practice: a cross-sectional analysis of prescriptive patterns from the STAR Network DEPOT study

Introduction: Information on the off–label use of Long–Acting Injectable (LAI) antipsychotics in the real world is lacking. In this study, we aimed to identify the sociodemographic and clinical features of patients treated with on– vs off–label LAIs and predictors of off–label First– or Second–Generation Antipsychotic (FGA vs. SGA) LAI choice in everyday clinical practice. Method: In a naturalistic national cohort of 449 patients who initiated LAI treatment in the STAR Network Depot Study, two groups were identified based on off– or on–label prescriptions. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to test several clinically relevant variables and identify those associated with the choice of FGA vs SGA prescription in the off–label group. Results: SGA LAIs were more commonly prescribed in everyday practice, without significant differences in their on– and off–label use. Approximately 1 in 4 patients received an off–label prescription. In the off–label group, the most frequent diagnoses were bipolar disorder (67.5%) or any personality disorder (23.7%). FGA vs SGA LAI choice was significantly associated with BPRS thought disorder (OR = 1.22, CI95% 1.04 to 1.43, p = 0.015) and hostility/suspiciousness (OR = 0.83, CI95% 0.71 to 0.97, p = 0.017) dimensions. The likelihood of receiving an SGA LAI grew steadily with the increase of the BPRS thought disturbance score. Conversely, a preference towards prescribing an FGA was observed with higher scores at the BPRS hostility/suspiciousness subscale. Conclusion: Our study is the first to identify predictors of FGA vs SGA choice in patients treated with off–label LAI antipsychotics. Demographic characteristics, i.e. age, sex, and substance/alcohol use co–morbidities did not appear to influence the choice towards FGAs or SGAs. Despite a lack of evidence, clinicians tend to favour FGA over SGA LAIs in bipolar or personality disorder patients with relevant hostility. Further research is needed to evaluate treatment adherence and clinical effectiveness of these prescriptive patterns

Comparing Long-Acting Antipsychotic Discontinuation Rates Under Ordinary Clinical Circumstances: A Survival Analysis from an Observational, Pragmatic Study

Background: Recent guidelines suggested a wider use of long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI) than previously, but naturalistic data on the consequences of LAI use in terms of discontinuation rates and associated factors are still sparse, making it hard for clinicians to be informed on plausible treatment courses. Objective: Our objective was to assess, under real-world clinical circumstances, LAI discontinuation rates over a period of 12 months after a first prescription, reasons for discontinuation, and associated factors. Methods: The STAR Network ‘Depot Study’ was a naturalistic, multicentre, observational prospective study that enrolled subjects initiating a LAI without restrictions on diagnosis, clinical severity or setting. Participants from 32 Italian centres were assessed at baseline and at 6 and 12 months of follow-up. Psychopathology, drug attitude and treatment adherence were measured using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Drug Attitude Inventory and the Kemp scale, respectively. Results: The study followed 394 participants for 12 months. The overall discontinuation rate at 12 months was 39.3% (95% confidence interval [CI] 34.4–44.3), with paliperidone LAI being the least discontinued LAI (33.9%; 95% CI 25.3–43.5) and olanzapine LAI the most discontinued (62.5%; 95% CI 35.4–84.8). The most frequent reason for discontinuation was onset of adverse events (32.9%; 95% CI 25.6–40.9) followed by participant refusal of the medication (20.6%; 95% CI 14.6–27.9). Medication adherence at baseline was negatively associated with discontinuation risk (hazard ratio [HR] 0.853; 95% CI 0.742–0.981; p = 0.026), whereas being prescribed olanzapine LAI was associated with increased discontinuation risk compared with being prescribed paliperidone LAI (HR 2.156; 95% CI 1.003–4.634; p = 0.049). Conclusions: Clinicians should be aware that LAI discontinuation is a frequent occurrence. LAI choice should be carefully discussed with the patient, taking into account individual characteristics and possible obstacles related to the practicalities of each formulation