Can this friendly robot assist elderly people?

16 Oct 2018 POSTED BY Vaishnavi Chidambaram

Stevie is a friendly looking robot with some human-like features. He’s been programmed to recognise what is normal and abnormal behaviour for an elderly person and to notify someone if something is out of the ordinary.He uses a camera, phone, and wifi to do this, and can turn lights and household appliances on and off. He performs some autonomous tasks and some others are human-controlled.Stevie's two arms and head interface allow him to provide social feedback to people working in his surroundings

In the above video , Stevie and 62-year-old Tony, who helps the researchers tweak the robot to be at his most useful, played out a few scenarios where having an assisted living robot would be useful.

In one such case, Tony tells Stevie he’s going up to bed, and to turn the lights off once he leaves the room. This eliminates the fear that an elderly person might fall after turning the lights off when heading to bed.

In another case, Stevie asks Tony if he takes his medication, as many elderly people do forget to take their daily medication, which can have serious health impacts. In another case, Stevie calls for help when Tony falls asleep at the dinner table, which the robot recognises is unusual for him.

Sounds, lights, facial expressions, and body language help Stevie to communicate and respond appropriately to different situation.Stevie is mobile and uses cameras in addition to depth, tactile, inertial, and voltage sensors that allow him to interact intelligently with his environment.

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Source: RTE.IE