A mobile robot platform for socially assistive home-care applications

The increasing number of elderly people with cognitive disabilities creates higher efforts and costs for care providers and family members. Assistive robot systems could accompany elderly people and help keeping the elderly longer at home to increase their quality of life and to save costs. However, current robot systems fail to deliver an adequate support of elderly people at acceptable costs. This paper presents a mobile robot platform for socially assistive care applications that was developed under consideration of functionalities, user acceptance, and costs.