PFI:BIC: Affordable and Mobile Assistive Robots for Elderly Care

该创新合作伙伴项目开发和测试服务机器人的使用，以监测和改善老年人的健康。发达国家不断增长的老年人口加上低出生率正在造成医疗保健危机。老年人的数量正在增长，超过了需要照顾他们的工作年龄成年人的数量。仅在美国，65岁以上的老年人人数预计将从2000年到2030年翻一番，达到7150万。由于缺乏护理选择，负担得起的机器人是一种受欢迎的解决方案，可以帮助老年人完成通常由护理人员完成的小型任务。在帮助老年人在老年人护理设施中进行日常生活活动的同时，系统了解他们。该项目包括两个主要部分：开发一种低成本的移动的机械手，能够执行有限的与老年人相关的操作任务（例如，（例如捡起掉落的物品或装满水杯）;以及开发一个数据驱动的服务系统，分析机器人在一段时间内的使用情况，通过服务请求监测老年人的健康状况，并根据需要主动提供帮助。使这一系统可行的一个关键是以低成本保持有效性。这项工作建立在Savioke正在开发的商业低成本移动的机器人平台上，并通过宾夕法尼亚大学正在开发的新型低成本扩展棱柱关节臂增加了操纵能力。这种移动的机械手机器人将用于执行服务任务，例如为老人送水。这些机器人收集的数据以及老年人如何在现场使用它们将提供有关机器人如何帮助创建更大的数据驱动的健康监测系统的信息。该项目的合作伙伴包括宾夕法尼亚大学工程与应用科学学院以及医学院（费城，宾夕法尼亚州）和Savioke（桑尼维尔，加利福尼亚州，一个小企业）沿着更广泛的背景合作伙伴，“生活”-独立生活的老年人（费城，宾夕法尼亚州，一个非营利组织）。

This Partnership For Innovation project develops and tests the use of service robots to monitor and improve health of the elderly. The growing elderly population coupled with low birth rates in the developed world is creating a crisis in healthcare. The number of senior citizens is outgrowing the number of working-age adults to care for them. In the U.S. alone, the number of seniors over age 65 is projected to double from year 2000 to 2030, reaching 71.5 million. With the scarcity of care options available, affordable robots are a welcome solution for assisting elders with small tasks that would normally be done by a caregiver. While helping elders with activities of daily living in an elder care facility, the system learns about them. It can then do things such as help ensure that they are eating or drinking healthily.The project consists of two main parts: development of a low-cost mobile manipulator capable of a limited set of elder-relevant manipulation tasks (e.g., picking up dropped items or filling a water glass); and development of a data-driven service system that analyzes the use of the robot over time to monitor elder health via service requests and pro-actively offer assistance as needed. One key to making this system viable is maintaining effectiveness at low cost. This work builds on a commercial low-cost mobile robot platform being developed at Savioke and adds manipulation capabilities via a novel low-cost expanding prismatic joint arm under development at the University of Pennsylvania. This mobile manipulator robot will be used to perform service tasks, such as delivering water to elders. The data gathered by these robots and how elders use them in the field will provide information about how robots can help create a larger data-driven health monitoring system.The partners at the inception of the project include University of Pennsylvania, both the School of Engineering and Applied Science as well as the School of Medicine (Philadelphia, PA) and Savioke (Sunnyvale, CA, a small business concern) along with broader context partner, "LIFE"--Living Independently For Elders (Philadelphia, PA, a non-profit organization).