Comparison between a Continuous and Proactive Robot Assistance Approach for the Execution of Collaborative Tasks in Nursing Care

The aging society faces a problem of a lack of care. Innovative technologies and robotics in particular can provide relief in this context. It is important, however, that these technologies are adapted for use in care so that they can be accepted and used in everyday life. In the present work, a study for this case was conducted, which aims to compare and evaluate two modes of interaction of a robot manipulator mounted near a nursing bed, to support the caregiver during the transfer of a patient simulator to the lateral position. A distinction is made between continuous and proactive support behaviour. While in the continuous method the robot remains close to the patient during the whole scenario, in the proactive method the support process is only initiated as soon as it is visually detected that the patient should be brought into the lateral position using a Wizard of Oz experiment setup. Overall, the study showed that a continuous support behavior of the robot is preferred.