A Cloud Robotics Solution to Improve Social Assistive Robots for Active and Healthy Aging

Manuele Bonaccorsi,Paolo Dario,Alessandro Saffiotti,Laura Fiorini,Filippo Cavallo

doi:10.1007/s12369-016-0351-1

Manuele Bonaccorsi, Paolo Dario + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-016-0351-1

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Abstract

Technological innovation in robotics and ICT represents an effective solution to tackle the challenge of providing social sustainable care services for the ageing population. The recent introduction of cloud technologies is opening new opportunities for the provisioning of advanced robotic services based on the cooperation of a number of connected robots, smart environments and devices improved by the huge cloud computational and storage capability. In this context, this paper aims to investigate and assess the potentialities of a cloud robotic system for the provisioning of assistive services for the promotion of active and healthy ageing. The system comprised two different smart environments, located in Italy and Sweden, where a service robot is connected to a cloud platform for the provisioning of localization based services to the users. The cloud robotic services were tested in the two realistic environments to assess the general feasibility of the solution and demonstrate the ability to provide assistive location based services in a multiple environment framework. The results confirmed the validity of the solution but also suggested a deeper investigation on the dependability of the communication technologies adopted in such kind of systems.

Highlights

The number of Europeans over 60 years of age will increase at a rate of two million per annum, while the working age population will shrink because of the low EU birthrate [1]
The round trip time (RTT) was computed as the mean time over 24 h, and in order to take into account the varying use of bandwidth over the day, the RTT was computed at night (8 h) and during the work-day (10 h)
A request for user position was sent at the rate of 1 Hz to the DB Management Service (DBMS) to simulate the call of a number of robotic services from several users

Summary

Introduction

The number of Europeans over 60 years of age will increase at a rate of two million per annum, while the working age population will shrink because of the low EU birthrate [1]. Most of older are affected by one or several chronic diseases requiring several medicines and the periodic monitoring of their health parameters. This will increase the demand for nurse practitioners (+94 % in 2025) [3] and physician assistants (+72 % in 2025) [4] with several implications for the quality of care and for the configuration of future cost-effective care delivery systems. One in six of all 74 million elderly people living in Europe is at risk of poverty [5] and the number of elderly persons living alone will increase more and more. Most of the EU seniors want to remain in their familiar environment and to live as independently as possible [6], even if affected by age-related limitations

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