CompanionAble: Graceful integration of mobile robot companion with a smart home environment

Inclusion of service robots in the daily lives of frail older users: A step-by-step definition procedure on users' requirements

“…Several personal service robots have been developed, including Aibo (Fujita, 2001), Care-O-bot (Graf, Han, & Schraft 2004;Graf, Reiser, Hägele, Mauz, & Klein, 2012), Pearl (Pollack et al, 2002), iCat (van Breemen, Yan, & Meerbeek, 2005), Robocare (Cesta et al, 2007), Robot-Era robots (Cavallo et al, 2014), or Hobbit (Fischinger et al, 2016). In addition, the robots Huggable (Stiehl et al, 2006), Paro (Wada, Shibata, Musha, & Kimure, 2005), Companionable (Badii et al, 2009), Giraff (Coradeschi, Loutfi, Kristoffersson, Von Rump, Cesta, Cortellessa, 2011) and GiraffPlus (2014), amongst others, have been developed to provide emotional support and other companion functions. Under this context, some studies have considered the optimal companionship that robots could provide (Taggart, Turkle, & Kidd, 2005;Wada, Shibata, Saito, & Tanie, 2003).…”

A mixed-method approach to evoke creative and holistic thinking about robots in a home environment

“…These include Hobbit, a socially assistive robot to support older adults in their home for tasks such as picking up objects and detecting emergency situations [1], Care-O-Bot, a mobile service robot focussed on the execution of fetch-and-carry tasks to support personnel of nursing homes in their daily tasks [2], RoboCare, a multi-agent human assistance system composed of a robotic agent, sensors for continuous monitoring, and reasoning systems [3], K-SERA, developing a social robot that monitors, helps and alerts persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, to facilitate effective selfmanagement of their disease [4], Florence, developing a robot with local and remote communication services to improve home care for older persons [5], and CompanionAble, providing people suffering from mild cognitive impairments (MCI) with a cognitive assistive companion to support their wellbeing [6].…”

“Maybe It Becomes a Buddy, But Do Not Call It a Robot” – Seamless Cooperation between Companion Robotics and Smart Homes

“…Care-O-Bot, a mobile service robot focussed on the execution of fetch-and-carry tasks to support the personnel of older persons nursing home in their daily tasks [4]; RoboCare, a multi-agent human assistance system, composed of a robotic agent, sensors for continuous monitoring, and additional reasoning systems [5]; K-SERA, a social robot that monitors, helps and alerts persons with COPD during their daily activities, to facilitate effective selfmanagement of their disease [6]; and Florence, a robot with existing home automation infrastructures and local and remote communication services, to improve home care for older persons [7]. Similarly, projects like CompanionAble [8] and Mobiserv [9] recognize that the next frontier towards close and sensitive cooperation between a smart home and a social companion robot would be via improving natural and inspiring interaction, and addressing more user needs in a trusted manner. Due to the nature of this close cooperation, interaction possibilities will be numerous.…”

“…UI-REF [8]) requiring close contact with end-users, their proxies, and end-user organisations in several European countries. Accordingly, the insights gained through extensive user-centred research (such as cultural probes, focus groups, semistructured interviews, use-context studies) have build a consistently integrated requirements formalisation and usability evaluation of the resulting smart-home companion systems.…”