Raffaele Esposito

Development of a Socially Believable Multi-Robot Solution from Town to Home

Abstract Technological advances in the robotic and ICT fields represent an effective solution to address specific societal problems to support ageing and independent life. One of the key factors for these technologies is that they have to be socially acceptable and believable to the end-users. This paper aimed to present some technological aspects that have been faced to develop the Robot-Era system, a multi-robotic system that is able to act in a socially believable way in the environments daily inhabited by humans, such as urban areas, buildings and homes. In particular, this paper focuses on two services—shopping delivery and garbage collection—showing preliminary results on experiments conducted with 35 elderly people. The analysis adopts an end-user-oriented perspective, considering some of the main attributes of acceptability: usability, attitude, anxiety, trust and quality of life.

Ambient Assisted Living and ageing: Preliminary results of RITA project

The ageing of population is a social phenomenon that most of worldwide countries are facing. They are, and will be even more in the future, indeed trying to find solutions for improving quality of life of their elderly citizens. The project RITA wants to demonstrate that an update of the current socio-medical services with an Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) approach could improve the service efficiency and the quality of life of both elderly and caregiver. This paper presents the preliminary results obtained in RITA.

A web based multi-modal interface for elderly users of the robot-era multi-robot services

In this paper we present the design and technical implementation of a web based Multi-Modal User Interface (MMUI) tailored for elderly users of the robotic services developed by the EU FP7 Large-Scale Integration Project Robot-Era. The project partners are working to significantly enhance the performance and acceptability of technological services for ageing well by delivering a fully realized system based on the cooperation of multiple heterogeneous robots and with the support of an Ambient Assisted Living environment. To this end, elderly users were involved in the definition of the services and in the design of the hardware and software of the robotic platforms from the first stages of the development process and in real experimentation in two test sites. In particular, here we detail the interface software system for multi-modal elderly-robot interaction. The MMUI is designed to run on any device including touch-screen mobiles and tablets that are preferred by the elderly. This is obtained by integrating web based solutions with the Robot-Era middlewares and planner. Finally we present some preliminary results of ongoing experiments to show the successful evaluation of usability by potential users and to discuss the future directions to improve the proposed MMUI software system.

Enabling personalised medical support for chronic disease management through a hybrid robot-cloud approach

Information and Communication Technology and personal robots could play a fundamental role in efficiently managing chronic diseases and avoiding improper medications. They could support senior citizens with reminders, thus promoting their independent living and quality of life, especially in the presence of several chronic diseases (multimorbidity). In this context, this article proposes a service model for personalised medical support that is able to provide adequate healthcare service by means of a hybrid robot-cloud approach. This service was quantitatively and qualitatively tested to assess the technical feasibility and user acceptability level of the service. The service was tested with 23 older people (65–86 years) in the DomoCasa Lab (Italy). This study demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed hybrid cloud solution and the usability and acceptability were positively evaluated thus confirming the ability to utilise these innovative technologies for active and healthy ageing.

The multi-modal interface of Robot-Era multi-robot services tailored for the elderly

Socially assistive robotic platforms are now a realistic option for the long-term care of ageing populations. Elderly users may benefit from many services provided by robots operating in different environments, such as providing assistance inside apartments, serving in shared facilities of buildings or guiding people outdoors. In this paper, we present the experience gained within the EU FP7 ROBOT-ERA project towards the objective of implementing easy-to-use and acceptable service robotic system for the elderly. In particular, we detail the user-centred design and the experimental evaluation in realistic environments of a web-based multi-modal user interface tailored for elderly users of near future multi-robot services. Experimental results demonstrate positive evaluation of usability and willingness to use by elderly users, especially those less experienced with technological devices who could benefit more from the adoption of robotic services. Further analyses showed how multi-modal modes of interaction support more flexible and natural elderly–robot interaction, make clear the benefits for the users and, therefore, increase its acceptability. Finally, we provide insights and lessons learned from the extensive experimentation, which, to the best of our knowledge, is one of the largest experimentation of a multi-robot multi-service system so far.

Robot-Era Project: Preliminary Results on the System Usability

The European project Robot-Era is an ambitious integrated project (FP7-ICT-2011.5.4), which objective is the development of advanced robotic services, integrated in intelligent environments, to provide independent living to older people.

Design of Cloud Robotic Services for Senior Citizens to Improve Independent Living and Personal Health Management

A cloud robotics solution was designed and initially tested with a mobile robotic platform and a smart environment, in order to provide health-care management services to senior citizens and improve their independent living. The solution was evaluated in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and tested in the realistic scenario of the DomoCasa Living Lab, Peccioli, Italy. In particular, a medication reminding service, a remote home monitoring and a user indoor localization algorithm were outsourced in the cloud and provided to the robots, users and carers. The system acquired data from a smart environment and addressed the robot to the user for service delivery. Experiments showed a service’s Reliability of Response at least of the 0.04 % and a Time of Response of the same order of magnitude of the processing time required by the user localization algorithm.

RITA Project: An Ambient Assisted Living Solution for Independent and Safely Living of Aging Population

This paper presents the work carried out during the RITA Project, a study that focused on designing and implementing Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services in the real context of Province of Pisa (Tuscany, Italy). The main objective of the RITA Project was to demonstrate the efficiency and the feasibility of new socio-medical services based on AAL approach. The user target of this project were elderly persons of Pisa area, living mainly alone or with a partner at their home, and their formal and informal caregivers. According to their needs new services and ICT system were developed and tested in order to improve the sense of safety of elderly people and caregivers.

Enhancing Human Robot Interaction Through Social Network Interfaces: A Case Study

Recently we have assisted to the rise of different Social Networks, and to the growth of robots for home applications, which represent the second big market opportunity. The use and the integration of robotics services in our daily life is strictly correlated with their usability and their acceptability. Particularly, their ease of use, among other issues, is linked to the simplicity of the interface the user has to interact with. In this sense social networks could enrich and simplify the communication between the user and technology avoiding the multiplication of custom interfaces. In this work the authors propose a system to enHancE human RobOt Interaction through common Social networks (HeROIS). HeROIS system combines the use of cloud resources, service robot and smart environments proposing three different services to help citizens in daily life. In order to assess the acceptability and the usability levels, HeROIS system and services have been tested with 13 real users (24–37 years old) in the DomoCasa Lab (Italy). As regards the usability, the results show that the proposed system is usable for 4 participants (30.77 % M = 79.69 SD = 3.13) and excellent for 9 participants (69.23 % M = 90.05 SD = 3.72). Concerning the acceptability level, the results show that the proposed system is acceptable for 8 volunteers (61.54 % M = 77.02 SD = 4.23) and excellent for 5 participants (38.46 % M = 89.71 SD = 6.06).

Robotic delivery service in combined outdoor–indoor environments: technical analysis and user evaluation

Abstract Robotic solutions for delivery tasks in urban and unstructured areas have represented a solid and considerable field of research in recent years. The aim of the proposed paper is to present the technical feasibility and usability of a robotic solution able to carry items from outdoor areas up to the user’s apartment and vice-versa. The proposed solution is based on three heterogeneous mobile platforms, working in three different environments (domestic, condominium, outdoor), able to cooperate among themselves and with other machines in the framework (i.e. the elevator of the condominium). The evaluation was performed in realistic environments involving 30 end-users.