The GrowMeUp system is an affordable robotic platform, whose purpose is to increase the years of independence, active living and the quality of life of older persons with light physical or mental health problems who live alone at home. The system will be able to learn older persons needs and habits over time to enhance existing or learn new services, with the purpose of efficiently compensate for older persons capabilities degradation and to gradually adapt its interaction over time. The system will be introduced early enough to the elderly, with the aim of creating a positive long-term relationship between the older person and the robot, considering friends, family and caregivers as active collaborators with whom the robot can interact with. The robot is connected to a virtual care network that provides for continuous care, motivation and education to the older persons of how to best use the platform. The four key innovations are as follows:
Cloud Technologies aims:
• To enable different robots to share knowledge continuously and extend their capabilities with reduced effort;
• To capitalize on information made available from other robots, from the elderly or from caregivers;
• To reduce the computational burden on the robot, relieving more demanding tasks from the robot.
Behavior and Emotional Understanding aims:
• To create a scalable and adaptable mathematical model of the elderly typical behavior;
• To enable the system to predict and identify erroneous situations, triggering timely and appropriate services;
• To empower elderly people with a better management of their lives;
• To understand the elderly and provide adequate motivation and guidance on their daily tasks;
Intelligent Dialoguing aims:
• To enable older people to effortlessly and intuitively interact with the system using natural dialogues;
• To understand elderly and use context information so that the robot is able to adapt its interaction and discourse;
• To increase the acceptance by elderly people;
Personalized care aims:
• To provide a set of services that are served differently to all users, according to their preferences and profiles;
• To create a positive long-term relationship between the elderly and the robot, empowering the older person with a personalized robot companion and assistant;
• To foster the integration of the older person within its social circles through the virtual care team network.
All participants in the GrowMeUp interdisciplinary consortium (Figure 1) collaborate in complementary national and international networks, including EU funded projects. These will provide a platform for the continuous exchange of cutting-edge results and novel ideas in these research areas. Moreover, members of the consortium have bilateral collaborations with (non-) European research groups and companies. This illustrates that the present project will be embedded in a broad research network of on-going collaborations on topics of high relevance to the project.
Figure 1: GrowMeUp Consortium at Zuyderland Facilities during the Kick-Off Meeting
