Search

The paper describes the development of Living Hub: a laboratory for research, experimentation and training based on the Living Lab model, integrated with the use of the Simulation technique, to optimise the study of the interaction between people, environments, and technology. The lab aims to support the design of capacitating technologies and responsive environments that can adapt to the needs of their users, with reference to the home context. Located in Liguria, a region with the highest rate of ageing in the world, Living Hub focuses experimentation on innovative models for the care of the frail through different levels of scalar/modular integration of enabling technologies in the built environment.

A Machine-Learning process for selecting optimal biomarkers that identify Dysphagia is presented. The effectiveness of said biomarkers is confirmed by an ensemble of Classifiers that correctly distinguish between Healthy and Dysphagic patients with high Accuracy. An overview of the clinical meaning of the biomarkers found is presented in the Discussion, corroborating and further refining the previous studies in the matter. RASTA Processing for speech and spectral energy distribution are the main domains for detecting Dysphagia in the voice.

The research provides a design-driven overview of the fifty main humanoid robots that have made their appearance in science fiction movies from 1915 to 2018. The study provides a comparison of the principal aesthetic and interaction features in relation to what kind of character was performed and in what kind of movie it appears.

As massive changes in our lifestyle and society structure are coming, due to the contemporary pandemic situation, we face more than ever the challenge of employing non-human and teleassistance devices in many areas, especially those that require assisting and caring for weak users. Humanoid robots are proven to be a valuable asset in these situations but require to be carefully designed in their interaction features, in order to be accepted and valuably used by their users. In particular, this study is focused on robots that have a certain degree of human-likeness that allows to define them “humanoids”; for this kind of robots we can say that the area devoted to replicate human facial features is the most important interface for human–robot interaction. Actually, more than 60% of human–human interaction is conducted non-verbally, by using facial expressions and gestures. For a robot to be able to engage in this kind of interaction with a human and provide understandable feedbacks is a massive step towards acceptance and development of an affectional relationship by users. Being meant to reproduce human emotions, visual feedbacks are mostly developed referring to eminent researches in the psychological field: as Paul Ekman already observed in 1998, human faces have a universal coding for six basic expressions that represent as many basic emotions: fear, anger, disgust, happiness, sadness and surprise. Our research focuses on the design of an expression system to be implemented in a European-funded project for an assistive robot that will support weak users at home or in assistance facilities and their caregivers. Our main concern regarding this project are to design a dynamic, human-friendly system that is scalable and visually recalls real facial expressions without being too much human-like, in order to avoid the well-known uncanny effect described by Masairo Mori.

For a human user it is fundamental to recognize the synthetic emotion being presented as feedback on a robotic head, that can appear spontaneous or activated in reaction to the user’s action or request. The design of such feedbacks can greatly lower the learning curve of users who need to interact with automated systems, reducing the time and effort that they need to put into learning how to use the system. The paper will present our findings regarding the design of facial expressions and empathic aspects of a robotic head and the resulting interface that will be implemented on the robotic system that is being developed for the European-funded Si-Robotics project.

The research provides a design-driven overview of the fifty main humanoid robots which have been used over the last years in the revolutionary robotics field. The study provides a comparison of the principal aesthetic and interaction features in relation to what kind of environment and users each humanoid robot was designed for.

Recent studies showed that about the 8% of beds are occupied by patients who experience a delayed hospital discharge (DHD). This is attributed to a delay in the arrangement of home-care assistance or in admission to long-term care facilities. Recently a lot of technologies have been developed to improve caring and monitoring of older people. The aim of this study is to design, implement and test a prototype of a technology based post-hospitalization facility for older people at risk of DHD by using domotics, robotics and wearable sensors for tele-monitoring. A sensorised posthospitalization facility has been built inside the hospital. Thirty-five healthy volunteers aged from 20 to 82 years were recruited. Clinical and functional assessment, i.e. motility index (MI), and human-robot interaction satisfaction were measured. A significant correlation was observed between automatic MI and the Gait Speed, the time sit-to-stand, and the Timed Up and Go test. Domotics, robotics and technology-based telemonitoring may represent a new way to assess patient’s autonomy and functional and clinical conditions in an ecological way, reproducing as much as possible a real life at home.

Swallowing is a complex mechanism which requires the use of approximately fifty pairs of muscles and various nerves. The term “dysphagia” refers to a malfunctioning digestive system resulting in difficulty swallowing liquid and/or solid food. This disorder is very serious and frequent in diverse pathologies: treatment is extremely complex and requires a wide range of experts both in the diagnostic and healing phases. In fact, dysphagia exposes patients to several risks: aspiration of foodstuffs, malnutrition, dehydration, acute and chronic bronco-pulmonary complications, social life restrictions and impairment in their quality of life. In this paper, we describe a proof of concept for a new hardware and software smart system for patient swallowing monitoring designed using a user-centred approach and interdisciplinary team of clinicians, industrial designers and engineers to help patients with dysphagia go through their rehabilitation regimes at home in a safe and autonomous way. The intent is to provide an application and a device for healthcare professionals who deal with dysphagic patient management and also for the patient and caregiver. Through this interactive system, patient and doctor are in constant contact and the application informs the doctor or therapist etc., about the imminent risk factors in order to be able to act immediately and exclude further complications. This research tries to define a new category of wearable devices that are easy to use and useful for all involved in this pathology by describing the form and functions of its hardware and software.

The project Mo.Di.Pro, which stands for “Assisted Discharge modal” is a pilot study to test and validate an innovative form of hospitalisation which provides domestic assistance following treatment in the acute stage, during which, for a vast number of patients (mainly elderly) their discharge is delayed due to reasons independent from purely sanitary needs. The model proposes a domestic environment with sanitary assistance and monitoring with a discreet staff presence, in order to gradually prepare patients to return to their household after being discharged. This goal was pursued by designing and realising hi-tech, semi-hospital accommodation prototypes with domestic characteristics. They integrate the domestic environment with current technology in monitoring, telepresence, and teleassistance, thus reducing the need for continuous assistance from the medical staff. This contributed to increased safety and autonomy for patients.

This paper presents the outcome of the Workshop on Robot Interface Design, which was held in Genoa (Italy) over the months of January and February 2014 and was jointly organized by Polytechnic School at the University of Genoa and the National Research Council. The aim of the workshop was to study the design of physical, functional and graphical interfaces for a telepresence assistive robot, starting from the analysis of the current features of a commercial robot called Giraff (http://www.giraff.org). The fielding of the Giraff robot has been studied (within an EU-funded AAL project: ExCITE--http://www.excite-project.eu) in three different European countries as an ICT solution to support elderly people and to enhance social interaction with relatives and caregivers. The evaluation with real end-users of the Giraff brought to light a set of user requirements and issues to be improved in the robotic platform. This workshop sought to present the aspects connected to the design (in which participants had specific expertise), and to the users perception of the robot within a domestic environment. Particular attention was paid to the design of volumes, shapes and anthropometric relationships as well as elaborations on chromatic aspects and the exploitation of different kinds of material. Some of the main results of the workshop were: a design process involving different professionals such as designers, engineers and psychologists working in close contact with a group of end-users; a set of possible modifications/extensions of the robotic platform; a set of new design concepts featuring a higher level of product emotionality.

This chapter presents a preliminary study to design a couple of robots, conceived to assist senior citizens 65+ in domestic and public space. The design and development of these two robots, named Domestic and Condominium, concerned, from one hand, appropriate criteria of acceptability, usability, aesthetic and safety, and on the other hand specific functionalities to satisfy users’ needs.