Consumer Robots - Assisted Living

Assisted Living addresses the challenges of robotics technology support for independent living at all ages, social innovation and inclusion and ageing. The main settings of this are the house, the town, and daily human-inhabited environments; on the other side the relative actors are mainly healthy persons.

Domain Overview

The domain can be divided into a number of different sub-domains:
 Domestic appliances
 Entertainment
 Education
 Assisted Living
Each of these sub-domains has particular characteristics.

Sub-Domain: Assisted Living

Assisted Living addresses the challenges of robotics technology support for independent living at all ages, social innovation and inclusion and ageing. The main settings of this are the house, the town, and daily human-inhabited environments; on the other side the relative actors are mainly healthy persons.

The sub-domain of Assisted Living is closely related to the Healthcare Domain however its focus is on non-medical applications and on an ageing society. The market is defined by non-medical consumer customers, such as individual citizens, elderly persons, their families and caregivers. As with many other areas of consumer purchase and particularly healthcare related purchases key stakeholders include public and private service providers, voluntary associations (NGOs), retail, technology producers, IT infrastructure developers, policy makers, insurers, public administrations and standards and certification organizations.
This sub-domain address robotic solutions and technologies that aim to improve the quality of life by enriching the environments where humans live and work. These new technologies need to provide end-users with dependable, acceptable and sustainable support and assistance including where necessary individually tailored systems.

Current and future opportunity

Tele-presence robots
Current opportunities: Tele-presence robotics combines the technologies of communication with robotic platforms, in order to provide a greater interaction with and presence within the remote environment. Such systems let health-care workers check on patients and children who are homebound because of injuries, illnesses, or physical challenges can go to school.
Such systems already exist but can be enhanced both in terms of their ability to remotely manipulate the environment, feedback haptic sensations, and thereby extend the range of interactions.

Barriers and limitations: While there are concerns about such systems in professional work environments and the long term reliability for elderly people and their carers and relatives
such platforms can provide an alternative means of communication. However privacy and consent are critical, and in a commercial use of such devices to monitor the elderly safeguards would need to be put in place.
Personal wellbeing services
Current opportunities: The demands of a n ageing population and increased pressure on centralised healthcare mean that there is increased interest in services delivered at home.
Robotics technology has the potential to act in a diagnostic and therapeutic role. Promoting wellbeing at home through improved exercise, diet and monitoring could have considerable health benefits and is preferable to the provision of central services. There is the added benefit that such systems are able to carry out multiple functions and provide continuous monitoring in a home setting, as opposed to sporadic checks in hospital outpatient departments. In the future it is possible the robots may be able to assist in cognitive and mental wellbeing by providing cognitive support even in assessing and reducing stress.
Key to the success of these devices is the development of acceptable and effective sensing systems. Many physiological measurements require physical contact and measuring emotional state or behavioural traits, critical for the diagnosis of progressive conditions, requires continual monitoring and interpretation.
Barriers and limitations: If personal wellbeing management robots are to be successful, they need to be accepted by users. Acceptance is defined as the robot being incorporated into person’s life. For acceptance of robots to occur, there are three basic requirements:
motivation for using the robot, sufficient ease of use, and comfort with the robot physically, cognitively and emotionally
Robots for personal mobility
Current opportunities: Mobility is a key element in the maintenance of a healthy life and a lack of mobility contributes to the onset of many age related health issues. Robotics technology has the potential to provide a wide range of different types of mobility aids from assistance in standing and sitting to preventing falls and helping with personal hygiene.
Autonomous transport and assistance in mobility outside of the home is critical to extending social integration and maintaining a healthy life. The development of mobility aids for walking that increase confidence in moving over longer distances is also an important objective. Smart mobility aids may also be enhanced through wider connection to sources of data in the cloud to ensure safety and the delivery of localised services.
Barriers and limitations: Of critical importance to the utilisation of such devices is their ergonomic acceptability coupled to the cost of deployment and ethical and legal issues, especially legal liability. Systems that are justified though cost saving will need to demonstrate continued and sustained performance over extended periods of time. Validating and certifying systems will also be critical to acceptability. Which this type of system there area also ethical and societal consequences to their use and deployment, particularly if this is wide spread. Public engagement and debate will be an essential apart of developing such systems.