Introducing GARMI - A Service Robotics Platform to Support the Elderly at Home: Design Philosophy, System Overview and First Results

Abstract

This letter introduces GARMI, a service robotics platform conceptualized with a focus on assisting elderly at home. GARMI is designed to provide support with household tasks, as an avatar for tactile-enabled communication and as an interface for telemedicine and emergency assistance. Its unique humanoid design features a sensor-equipped multi-modal head designed for natural human-machine communication as well as a whole-body torque-control interface for safe physical human-machine interaction. GARMI's modular software architecture and distinctive whole-body control scheme allows multimodal dynamic coupling. Additionally, every system component can actively produce as well as sense forces and can thus serve as a haptic feedback interface when interacting with its environment and users. Furthermore, GARMI is the first mobile humanoid designed with specialized use-inspired avatar stations: PARTI for dual-arm-based exoskeleton-like remote-control with force-feedback and MUCKI for transparent remote doctor-patient interaction with both audiovisual and safe haptic feedback. The specialized software architecture allows for rapid prototyping and field-testing of new behaviors for telemedicine, multi-modal interaction and autonomous physical and service assistance. Our first results reveal the potential of our use-driven force-based whole-body control mobile humanoid for daily living and telemedicine scenarios in an elderly care research facility.