Paul Panek

A Videophone Prototype System Evaluated by Elderly Users in the Living Lab Schwechat

Elderly people often experience difficulties in using modern Information and Communication Technologies. This paper presents findings of an evaluation and a field test of a touch screen based internet videophone system mounted in a wooden frame in order to provide a non technical appearance. During a 14-day lasting field test in real-life environment the goal was to evaluate if and to what extent the elderly participants would benefit from using such a modern multimodal way of communication. Four prototype systems were installed in four private homes and were tested successfully by six persons. It was found that the elderly users actually benefited from the touchscreen control, the proportionally large-scale GUI and the VoIP-and video-telephone functions. Despite the small scale of the evaluation the gathered data demonstrates the potential this technology might have in daily life in particular for the emerging ambient assisted living (AAL) area.

Technical assistance for severely motor- and multiple impaired children

Up from a certain degree of impairment, motor and multiple disabled children are rarely able to use conventional environmental control and augmentative communication systems. To attain this ability, in many cases customer-tailored user interfaces plus a long training process is necessary. Even learning the relation between reason and effect and experiencing self effectiveness (being able to make something happen in the environment) is the first big challenge and often an entire new experience. Hence, a technical system able to meet the needs of these users has to fulfill three criteria: (1) give optimal support to the training process; (2) support the facilitators with a tool to easily adapt the system to the rapidly changing user needs; (3) be able to grow from the first experience of self effectiveness up to a multi functional, multi purpose technical aid. The paper discusses an innovative technical assistance system developed at the Vienna University of Technology which is especially for multiple impairments and the training process. The authors look back on one and a half years of practical evaluation of the technical assistance system in a support center for motor and multiple impaired persons. After introducing the concept of the technical assistance system and pointing out its special features, two case studies illustrate the practical application of the system.

Investigations to Develop a Fully Adjustable Intelligent Toilet for Supporting Old People and Persons with Disabilities - The Friendly Rest Room (FRR) Project

The FRR (Friendly Rest Room) project creates and evaluates prototypes of a more user friendly intelligent toilet for old persons and for persons with disabilities. Additionally, applicable knowledge regarding needs and wishes of old and/or disabled persons and their care persons are documented. In this paper the user driven research approach, ethical aspects and the iterative user centred design process are outlined. First results from user tests of lighting, human computer interface and preferred seating heights are described.

Das Technische Assistenzsystem - Unterstützung der Selbständigkeit bewegungs- und mehrfachbehinderter Personen

Von links nach rechts: Dipl.Ing. Paul Panek und Dipl.Ing. Christian Flachberger sind Mitarbeiter der Forschungsgruppe für Rehabilitationstechnik am Institut für Allgemeine Elektrotechnik und Elektronik an der Technischen Universität Wien. Dr. Wolfgang L. Zagler leitet diese Gruppe, die seit zehn Jahren besteht und sich mit Forschung und Entwicklung von neuen technischen Hilfsmitteln zur Unterstützung behinderter Personen beschäftigt. \

Technical Assistance for Motor- and Multiple Disabled Children - Some Long Term Experiences

This paper describes the application of a Technical Assistance system developed by the Vienna University of Technology. Main focus has been to provide new means for severely and multiple disabled children in order to support the childrens development and to give them more independence and autonomy while exploring their material and social environment. The concept of the system and the experiences collected in practical application of the system in a smart room of an Austrian Support Centre for disabled children are outlined. Based on the encouraging results the system now is also being used in other institutions, in private homes and in higher education in order to enhance independent living of profoundly disabled persons.

AUTONOMY—a flexible and easy-to-use assistive system to support the independence of handicapped and elderly persons

A new assistive system to support the independence of handicapped persons and elderly persons with handicaps is under development at the Working Group on Rehabilitation Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology. This paper describes the concept of the system. To meet the requirements of the very different possible users, high flexibility in supported functions and configuration of the user interface is essential for the concept. So this paper reports about a step towards an all purpose assistive system, usable by very different handicapped persons.

Wearable device to assist independent living

Abstract Older people increasingly want to remain living independently in their own homes. The aim of the ENABLE project is to develop a wearable device that can be used to support older people in their daily lives and which can monitor their health status, detect potential problems, provide activity reminders and offer communication and alarm services. In order to determine the specifications and functionality required for the development of the device, user surveys and focus groups were undertaken, use case analysis and scenario modeling carried out. The project has resulted in the development of a wrist-worn device and mobile phone combination that can support and assist older and vulnerable wearers with a range of activities and services both inside their home and as they move around their local environment. The device is currently undergoing pilot trials in five European countries. The aim of this paper is to describe the ENABLE device, its features and services, and the infrastructure within which it operates.

Tele-Help and Remote Service Provision Using RESORT Prototype System

The DE-4208 RESORT tele help prototype provides remote support for disabled users of PC based Rehabilitation Technology (RT) and their care persons in order to reduce existing barriers in daily usage and service of RT. The current RESORT prototype and its interface specification support also synchronisation of single switch users over narrow bandwidth network channels. The IP based RESORT system with its scaleable user interface is described explaining also the remote service API which allows to make already available RT software products ready to benefit from RESORTs tele help functionality. Experiences from real life tests and an outlook to current and future activities are given.

Hobbit: Providing Fall Detection and Prevention for the Elderly in the Real World

We present the robot developed within the Hobbit project, a socially assistive service robot aiming at the challenge of enabling prolonged independent living of elderly people in their own homes. We present the second prototype (Hobbit PT2) in terms of hardware and functionality improvements following first user studies. Our main contribution lies within the description of all components developed within the Hobbit project, leading to autonomous operation of 371 days during field trials in Austria, Greece, and Sweden. In these field trials, we studied how 18 elderly users (aged 75 years and older) lived with the autonomously interacting service robot over multiple weeks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a multifunctional, low-cost service robot equipped with a manipulator was studied and evaluated for several weeks under real-world conditions. We show that Hobbit’s adaptive approach towards the user increasingly eased the interaction between the users and Hobbit. We provide lessons learned regarding the need for adaptive behavior coordination, support during emergency situations, and clear communication of robotic actions and their consequences for fellow researchers who are developing an autonomous, low-cost service robot designed to interact with their users in domestic contexts. Our trials show the necessity to move out into actual user homes, as only there can we encounter issues such as misinterpretation of actions during unscripted human-robot interaction.

ENABLE --- A View on User's Needs

The ENABLE project, which is partly funded by the European Commission, aims to assist elderly people to live well, independently and at ease. In this project a wrist unit with both integrated and external sensors, and with a radio frequency link to a mobile phone, will be developed. ENABLE will provide a number of services for elderly people, among them also a remote control service for the home environment. This paper briefly describes the project in general and then focuses on the initial user needs investigation which was carried out in early 2007 in six different European countries. The provisional findings are discussed and an outlook on the ongoing and future project work is given. A special focus of this paper is on the environmental control service.