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 demand for caregivers is much higher and therefore a shortage of caregivers must be compensated. One of the anticipated needs of these elderly are physical exercises. In order to motivate elderly to do exercises, someone else needs to tell them to do any exercises at all and encourage them to get movement. That is where the research and robot of this project come into play. This project is about the research, design and possible solutions of a robot that helps motivating elderly to stay in a good shape. Not just physically, but also mentally. During the process, we will take a closer look at the user, society and enterprise perspectives of this research and how they are related.

Problem Statement

Elderly, especially the lonely elderly, often sit whole days long without any movement. This impacts not only the physical condition of a person, but it also has its effects on the mental condition of these people. To solve this problem, caregivers can help elderly by talking directly to them and encouraging them to do exercises and to make sure they execute it, they can help the elderly. However, since the amount of elderly increased with high speed over the years, there is a shortage of caregivers and therefore the anticipated needs of these elderly cannot be provided by the current amount of caregivers. Already thinking about possible solutions, robots can be used to solve this problem. But who decides if this works? And why should elderly accept a "device" to help them? These are questions that we will address in this project as well. Nowadays, this is a problem that is discussed a lot. It is not only important to find a solution just for now, but also the future is really important, because when the amount of elderly increases even more, the relative shortage of caregivers is even higher and therefore there is desperately more need for extra assistance.

Week 1

Objectives

In order to apply and work with a robot that helps motivating elderly to do physical exercises, a set of objectives must be made and a main goal must be established. The main objective of this project is to find a way to increase the motivation among elderly to do physical exercises. With this main objective, a subset of objectives can be formulated that directly relates to the robot but also to the project itself.

- There is communication between the robot and the user;

- The interface is as simple as possible so that elderly can easily use the robot;

- The project is focused on the user, society and enterprise perspectives;

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.

Approach

In order to meet the criteria that was set in the objectives,an approach had to be made. The approach includes a rough summary of the planning (which can be seen below) and an explanation on how we want to achieve the milestones. So we decided to divide the project in three parts:

1. Research:

In this part research has to be done with use of literature, survey(s) and personal interview(s). The results of the research have to give answers about the following questions:

• How do elderly react to care robots which are helping with their health?

• What are the best methods to motivate someone who is doing health exercises?

• Which exercises are the most effective ones?

• Is scanning with use of a camera the best way to analyze the movements?

• Is it profitable to implant such a system in a robot?

2. Product shaping:

The product shaping is the part in which the product will be conceptualized and programmed. In this process the RPC's have to be decided first, in order to chose the program, hardware and the approach of the programming language itself. When the product is finished an user manual will be written to make it easier for the users to understand how it works and what the functionalities are. Besides an user manual a logo and brand name will be assigned to the product itself.

3. Documentation

The wiki have to be updated and look like a report at the end of the project. To accomplish this someone will be assigned to check and edit the page every week. Besides the wiki, a presentation have to be made in anticipation of the last few weeks.

Every week the members of this project will be divided in three groups and work on the three part described above. 2 Persons will work on the research part, 2 on the product shaping and 1 will do the documentation (if needed). If we decide to cancel the product shaping part due to the complexity, the project will become a research project in which we will research the pro's and con's of a system which helps elderly with their health exercises. When the complexity of programming such a system can be handled the research part will support the product part, because the results can be used in the actual product. For instance the answer to the question: 'What are the best methods to motivate someone who is doing health exercises?' influences the output of the program.

Planning

Week	What have to be done	Responsible member(s)
1	1. Problem statement+ objectives 2. State of the art 3. Users+ what do they require 4. Approach+ Planning milestones+ deliverables+ Who does what	1. Tim 2. Jules & Stijn 3. Jessie 4. Ruben
2	1. Research question 1+ making an enquete/ interviews 2. Product shaping: RPC's + pick software	1. 2.
3	1. Research question 2 2. Product shaping: Start programming + pick hardware	1. 2.
4	1. Research question 3 2. Product shaping: Logo+ brand name+ programming 3. Check/organize the wiki page	1. 2. 3.
5	1. Research question 4 2. Product shaping: Programming+ implant the use aspects found during the research	1. 2.
6	1. Research question 5 2. Product shaping: Finish programming 3. Check/organize the wiki page	1. 2. 3.
7	1. Research question 2. Product shaping: Write manual 3. Check/organize the wiki page	1. 2. 3.
8	1. Research question 2. Make a presentation 3. Finish the wiki page	1. 2. 3.

Milestones

To make it easier for the group to get to the deliverables (which are stated below) some milestones have to be set. The milestones are:

1.Research:

• Doing research on every question
• Take a survey
• Interview some potential users

2. Product shaping

• Define the RPC's
• Pick the software and hardware
• Program the product
• Implant the results of the research into the product
• Brand name, logo and user manual

3. Documentation

• Organize the wiki page
• Grammar and spelling check
• Write presentation text
• Make a powerpoint

Deliverables

At the end of the project the following things have to be deliverd:

• Report/finished wiki page
• Results of the research
• Product
• Presentation

Who will do what

In the planning a column is made for assigning every task to certain people. Only week one is filled in, because we have to determine who is going to do what in what particular week after the first week. On the other hand we already assigned the members to be responsible for some deliverables:

Deliverable	Responsible member(s)
Report/finished wiki page	Ruben & ....
Results of the research	Jules
Product	Jessie
Presentation	....

References

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