The aging population is growing at an unprecedented rate globally and robotics-enabled solutions are being developed to provide better independent living for older adults. In this study, we report the results from a systematic review of the state-of-the-art in home robotics research for caring for older adults. This review aims to address two questions: (1) What research is being done towards integrating robotics for caring for older adults? (2) What are the research and technology challenges that robots are facing in the home? Sixty-three papers have been identified and studied in this review by following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Common themes that are consistent across the reviewed papers are distinguished and consolidated as follows: (1) Ambient assisted living, where smart home environments and physical support tools are studied; (2) Robot ecosystem, where robotic devices are used to provide various services; (3) Social interaction, where the social isolation problem has been targeted. We also summarize the results of similar literature reviews we came across during our search. The results of this study present the current research trends and technologies used in each category. The challenges and limitations of robotics applications are also identified. Suggestions for accelerating the deployment of robots at home for providing older adults with independent care in the home are presented based on the results and insights from this study.
Previous studies that use dry samples have been conducted on the nanoporosity of organic matter in shale. However, underground shales contain pore water that may greatly influence their pore structures and adsorbed gas content. To address this, a typical organic-rich, marine, gas-bearing shale in China was analyzed in this study. The water content and isothermal adsorption under different saturation conditions were determined, and the adsorbed and free gas contents were quantified. Across scales, water occurs within clays, between grains, and in fissures. In micro- and mesopores, gas is mainly adsorbed onto the surface of kerogen, because clay surfaces are water-saturated. In macropores and fractures, gas mainly exists in a free state. Adsorbed and free gas contents decrease with increasing water saturation in shale reservoirs. In high-production reservoirs, a limited amount of adsorbed gas is stored within micropores, while a relatively large amount of free gas is stored in larger pores and natural fractures. Because shale gas occurs in low concentrations, high total organic carbon may not be the only necessary factor; high porosity and many natural fractures may be more favorable for high reservoir productivity. The results provide valuable insights for understanding gas storage and finding zones of high productivity in shale reservoirs and have potential applications in engineering conditions.
Avoiding obstacles in the perceived world has been the classical approach to autonomous mobile robot navigation. However, this usually leads to unnatural and inefficient motions that significantly differ from the way humans move in tight and dynamic spaces, as we do not refrain interacting with the environment around us when necessary. Inspired by this observation, we propose a framework for autonomous robot navigation among movable obstacles (NAMO) that is based on the theory of affordances and contact-implicit motion planning. We consider a realistic scenario in which a mobile service robot negotiates unknown obstacles in the environment while navigating to a goal state. An affordance extraction procedure is performed for novel obstacles to detect their movability, and a contact-implicit trajectory optimization method is used to enable the robot to interact with movable obstacles to improve the task performance or to complete an otherwise infeasible task. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed framework by hardware experiments with Toyota's Human Support Robot.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.