Can robots solve the problems of an ageing society? Workshop at IROS 2016

Date:18 Mai 2016 - By:Sebastian Weisenburger - Category:

A child born today can expect to live more than 30 years longer than one born in 1900. This positive trend leads towards an ageing society, in 2012 over 800 million people were aged 60 and over and their number is expected to more than double until the year 2050. In this context health services for the elderly are becoming increasingly important for society, opening a vast field for robotics applications. An example for such an application is the robotized Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), a clinical management strategy, used around the world, assessing the capabilities of the elderly patients and providing valuable data for the medical staff to prepare an appropriate care plan. There are several attempts worldwide, in cooperation with relevant public bodies and hospitals, to make the CGA (semi-)autonomous, though many challenges still remain open.

Our workshop “Robotics for the elderlies: involving science, end users, and public bodies” at the 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2016) aims to be a forum for discussion of various approaches in the field of robotics for the elderly, involving all the stakeholders, ranging from scientists to end users and to public bodies.

The workshop also comprises a poster spotlight and poster session, to allow active participation of researchers, including students, in the field of assistive robotics, in order to broaden the information available on the current research worldwide. We kindly invite researchers to submit posters addressing one ore more of the following topics:

  • Geriatric assessment through robotics
  • Robotic companions
  • Robotic monitoring systems
  • Vision or other sensor-based algorithms for patient assessment
  • Human-Robot interaction (especially in the case of elderly people)
  • Acceptability of robotics solutions
  • Robotic mobility aids
  • Roboethics
  • Cooperation with public institutions to introduce robotics technology

Preliminary workshop programme

Time: 10th October 2016, time of day: coming soon
Venue: Daejeon Convention Center, room number: coming soon

Topic Speaker
Welcome and Introduction
Geriatric Assessment through Robotics:
the PDTI Challenge in ECHORD++
 Dr. Alois Knoll
Robotic Services for Elderly Users in Real-Life Scenarios  Dr. Paolo Dario, Dr. Filippo Cavallo
Lessons learned in interaction Robot-Patient  Dr. Elizabeth Anne Broadbent (tbc)
Autonomous wheelchair: from design to use  Dr. Jonathan Kelly
Poster spotlights
Coffee break and poster session
World Café, with three groups moving – 20 minutes for each topic:

  • Technical Challenges: hot topics and how to address them?
  • Human-Robot Interaction Challenges:
    how to increase acceptability?
  • Institutional Challenges: how to involve public bodies?
Plenary discussion
Final remarks and conclusions of the workshop

 

Call for Contributions

We welcome prospective participants to submit extended abstracts (up to 2 pages) to be presented in a poster session. The submissions should use the IEEE IROS two-column format and must be written in English.

Submissions will be selected based on their relevance to the workshop topics, their originality, presentation and soundness. We also encourage submissions of relevant work that has been previously published or will be presented at the conference. The workshop is a perfect opportunity to present your ongoing work and exchange and discuss ideas within the field of robotics for the elderly.

Please send a PDF copy of your extended abstracts to the following e-mail addresses no later than September 18, 2016 to maurelli@in.tum.de and fk@blue-ocean-robotics.com.

Reviewing is single blind and will be carried out by the workshop chairs and selected experts in related fields. Accepted papers require at least one of the authors to register for the workshop. Participants will be notified of acceptance by September, 30.

 

Contact
Dr. Francesco Maurelli
Institut für Informatik VI
Technische Universität München
Schleißheimerstr. 90a
85748 Garching bei München – Hochbrück
Germany
Tel: +49 89 289-18064
Email: maurelli@in.tum.de