PRE2018 3 Group7

Group members

Name	Student ID	Major
Jules Vliem	1256122	Electrical Engineering
Stijn Verhoeven	1238464	Mechanical Engineering
Tim Jonkman	0963139	Mechanical Engineering
Ruben Schmeitz	1233052	Mechanical Engineering
Jessie Maassen	1266500	Computer Science

Introduction

As the amount of elderly increases, the

Week 1

Users

Primary users

The primary users of our technology are elderly people. Our technology is aimed at improving the physical health of elderly people, while providing them with the comfort of their own homes. Elderly people however are often characterised as being skeptical about technology. That's why it's important to focus on how this feedback technology can be integrated in the households of the elderly people effectively. As little aversion as possible towards the technology should be provoked. Firstly it has been shown that people tend to react better to commands and feedback given by real robots than virtual agents. That's why it is important that we don't just make a virtual platform that can check the physical movements of the elderly people and give feedback to it, but that its functionality is combined with a physical robot. Another thing the elderly people require in order to improve their physical activity by given feedback is the way the technology communicates with the person. The right form of persuasion has to be determined so that the elderly person don't feel a form of coercion, but merely a form of good motivation.

Secondary users

The secondary users are the care givers and the family and friends of the old people. The family and friends might feel less anxious about the physical health of the elderly person they care for, when they know that they are performing regular exercises in a appropriate way. One functionality that can be added for example is the option to check on the robot, whether the elderly has actually performed the exercises and how well they did. This way they will be able to keep track of their activity and see if progress has been made. The functionality of tracking progress can also be useful for the caregivers hence they can see how certain physical exercises are affecting their patient and if maybe some exercises have to be changed or added. A problem that comes with this added functionality, that should be considered, is the invasion of privacy.

State-of-the-art

But for how to check if the elders do their tasks, not a lot of studies have been done.

A couple of studies have been performed on Robot-Human relationships. Overall, results show that socially assistive robots positively affect user experience and motivation compared to standard smart environment interfaces such astouch screens In their KSERA research, Torta et al. have used Nao as an interactive humanoid robot.

Another example of an experimental humanoid care robot is the robot TAIZO which has been used by Matsusaka et al.. Matsusaka et al. have performed a research on the effects of voice command on health exercise demonstration in a robot-human collaborative demonstration.

The Taizo exercise robot

Leire Lopez-Samaniego and Begonya Garcia-Zapirain have even gone further. Lopez-Samaniego and Garcia-Zapirain have written an article about a robot based tool for physical and cognitive rehabilitation of elderly people using biofeedback. Their approach didn't use a humanoid robot, but they've used a Lego based EV3 brick robot carrying an iPad instead. According to Lopez-Samaniego and Garcia-Zapirain "the main strength of this project is the combination of biofeedback techniqueswith Lego robots and serious gaming with the aim of providing both cognitive and motor rehabilitationfor elderly people."

Not only researches for physical motivation have been performed. Broadbent also describes a couple of healthcare robots. A specific one to mention is the robot seal "Paro". "The seal is intended to provide sim-ilar positive effects to a real pet, including psychologicalcomfort, physiological arousal, and social communication." Kazuyoshi Wada et al. also have performed research on the seal robot Paro. A part of their conclusion states "interaction with Paro improved the mood state of the subjects, and its effect was unchanged throughout during the five weeks of interaction." Subject being here the elderly users which have interacted with Paro for a period of five weeks.

Most of the research in the care robot domain has been done on the (ethical) consequences that it brings with it

But research on the best way to control and boost performance of the elders by a exercise robot, not a much has been done.

Who will do what

Problem statement + objectives - Tim

State of the art - Jules + Stijn

Users + What do they require - Jessie

Approach, milestones and deliverables + who does what - Ruben

References

An autonomous robotic exercise tutor for elderly people %is een goede%