Dutch researchers ‘family friend’ robot
- 27 April 2010
A new Dutch research project coordinated by Eindhoven University of Technology has been launched to develop and integrate a socially assistive robot with smart houses to aid COPD patients at home.
The KSERA project (Knowledgeable Service Robots for Ageing) will work with a range of universities and companies to develop a robot which it refers to as a “sensible family friend.”
The €4m project, of which €2.9m is funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme, will develop several demonstration houses in Vienna and Israel by 2013.
The demonstration houses will be equipped with technology including self-opening curtains and a domestic robot that follows COPD patients through the house.
The smart house will learn their individual habits, providing them with health advice, and carry out services like turning the heating up and down as necessary, together with alerting the patient’s doctor if a patient is having problems.
The new robot project has been launched in coordination with Hamburg University, Italian Research Centre Institute Superiore Mario Boella, Vienna University of Technology, Italian ICT company, Consoft the Central European Institute of Technology in Vienna and the Israeli Care provider, Maccabi Healthcare Services.
A spokesperson from the department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences at Eindhoven University of Technology, said: “It should be as homely as possible. In an ideal situation the only technology you will see will be the robot. It will be the contact for all the domestic systems.”
The robot will also be able to provide home entertainment, through video and internet content. internet.
The robot will eventually link up with the EU funded RoboEarth project, which is a separate project aimed at building a global central memory for robots that will enable robots to learn from each other in order to communicate better with other people.
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