Results of a real world trial with a mobile social service robot for older adults

Robots are an increasingly discussed solution for assistance of seniors. Importance of testing natural interaction therefore becomes crucial. This paper presents first results of a study with an autonomous mobile social service robot prototype that was deployed in 18 private households of senior adults aged 75 years and older for a total of 371 days. Findings show that utility met the users' expectations. However, the robot was rather seen as a toy instead of being supportive for independent living. Furthermore, despite of an emergency function of the robot, perceived safety did not increase. Reasons for this might be the good health conditions of our users, a lack of technological robustness and slow performance of the prototype. However, users believed that a market ready version of the robot would be vital for supporting people who are more fragile and more socially isolated.

I. Introduction

The need of care for older adults is increasing, and supporting ways have to be found for human caregivers. One solution could be provided by robotics. So far, several research prototypes have been developed, e.g. [1]–[4]. Social robots, however, have hardly left living lab contexts and been introduced to real user homes. This paper presents first results of a long-term field trial in real private homes with prototype 2 (PT2) of an autonomous mobile social service robot called HOBBIT (see Fig. 1). Its main goal was to provide a feeling of safety (e.g. by fall detection) and to support the users in some tasks of daily living (e.g. pick-up objects from the floor/fall detection). We present answers to research questions on how seniors experienced the natural interaction with the autonomous robot in their private homes in terms of usability, utility, support of their independent living, and their feelings of safety.