An informationally structured room for robotic assistance.
The application of assistive technologies for elderly people is one of the most promising and interesting scenarios for intelligent technologies in the present and near future. Moreover, the improvement of the quality of life for the elderly is one of the first priorities in modern countries and societies. In this work, we present an informationally structured room that is aimed at supporting the daily life activities of elderly people. This room integrates different sensor modalities in a natural and non-invasive way inside the environment. The information gathered by the sensors is processed and sent to a centralized management system, which makes it available to a service robot assisting the people. One important restriction of our intelligent room is reducing as much as possible any interference with daily activities. Finally, this paper presents several experiments and situations using our intelligent environment in cooperation with our service robot.
Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. tsuji@ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
Tokuo
T
Tsuji
School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, Lincoln LN57PN, UK. omozos@lincoln.ac.uk.
Oscar Martinez
OM
Mozos
Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. huchae@irvs.ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
Hyunuk
H
Chae
Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. pyo@irvs.ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
Yoonseok
Y
Pyo
Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. kusaka@irvs.ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
Kazuya
K
Kusaka
Kumamoto National College of Technology, Kumamoto 861-1102, Japan. hasegawa@kumamoto-nct.ac.jp.
Tsutomu
T
Hasegawa
Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. morooka@ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
Ken'ichi
K
Morooka
Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. kurazume@ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
Ryo
R
Kurazume
D000368:Aged; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D011788:Quality of Life; D012371:Robotics; D012656:Self-Help Devices