Towards a Robot for Supporting Older People to Stay Longer Independent at Home

Abstract

The paper presents the intentions and the preliminary findings of the Socially Assistive Robot HOBBIT. The goal is to come up with a robotic solution which will balance user needs, acceptance and technical performance in an economic and affordable way while providing a solution for fall detection and prevention. Falls are the main risk of older adults living alone that require moving from home to care institutions. Hence, it is a primary target area to prevent falls and, if they happen nevertheless, to react immediately to prevent aggravated causes. We present first results of user trials given six tasks with the robot. To show the effect of bonding with the user - Mutual Care - users were separated in two groups. Results indicate that users find the robot more usable in the Mutual Care condition.