scholarly journals PHAROS—PHysical Assistant RObot System

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 2633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Costa ◽  
Ester Martinez-Martin ◽  
Miguel Cazorla ◽  
Vicente Julian

The great demographic change leading to an ageing society demands technological solutions to satisfy the increasing varied elderly needs. This paper presents PHAROS, an interactive robot system that recommends and monitors physical exercises designed for the elderly. The aim of PHAROS is to be a friendly elderly companion that periodically suggests personalised physical activities, promoting healthy living and active ageing. Here, it is presented the PHAROS architecture, components and experimental results. The architecture has three main strands: a Pepper robot, that interacts with the users and records their exercises performance; the Human Exercise Recognition, that uses the Pepper recorded information to classify the exercise performed using Deep Leaning methods; and the Recommender, a smart-decision maker that schedules periodically personalised physical exercises in the users’ agenda. The experimental results show a high accuracy in terms of detecting and classifying the physical exercises (97.35%) done by 7 persons. Furthermore, we have implemented a novel procedure of rating exercises on the recommendation algorithm. It closely follows the users’ health status (poor performance may reveal health problems) and adapts the suggestions to it. The history may be used to access the physical condition of the user, revealing underlying problems that may be impossible to see otherwise.

Author(s):  
Julita Markiewicz-Patkowska ◽  
Sławomir Pytel ◽  
Piotr Oleśniewicz ◽  
Rafał Tyszkiewicz

In the ageing society, seniors’ quality of life plays a significant role. It is influenced by physical activity, care of health, training of the mind. A considerable role in preparing people to ageing is ascribed to Universities of the Third Age, whose main purpose is to stimulate the elderly to active ageing and help them in their free time management. The quick civilizational progress makes it necessary to educate individuals throughout their lives. Those who participate in this process adapt to change more easily and pass through ageing more smoothly. The presented research results clearly confirm the positive impact of Universities of the Third Age on shaping seniors’ quality of life.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Amirul Amin Ismail ◽  
Ismail Samsuddin ◽  
Azman Zainonabidin ◽  
Harlina Mohd Ali

By the year 2030, Malaysian population will experience the after effects of the rapid growth of ageing society. This paper investigates the impact of seamless integration of horticultural activity in the new residential typology of retirement community. It is believed that horticultural therapy is not only beneficial for physical and psychological but also promotes socialisation opportunities among the elderly. Comparative analysis method on selected precedent studies has been carried out and analysed in accordance with Malaysian context. Initial findings indicate that a retirement community with horticultural activity gives therapy for healthier well-being. This therapeutic activity can be apositive change in elderly lifestyle and essential towards the establishment of retirement community in Malaysia. 


2019 ◽  
pp. 55-62
Author(s):  
Vuong Diem Khanh Doan ◽  
Ngoc Minh Chau Ho ◽  
Thi Van Ngo ◽  
Thi Bao Nga Phan ◽  
Thi Hong Phan Nguyen

Background: Vietnam is entering the stage of aging population; as a result, the quality of life (QOL) of the elderly is really a matter of concern. There is a great deal of research on the quality of life of the elderly while Vietnam witnesses a lack of research on this topic, especially on how physical and social activities have impact on QOL of the elderly. Objectives: (1) To describe the situation of participation in physical, social activities and QOL of the elderly residing in Truong An Ward, Hue city. (2) To examine the association between physical, social activities and QOL among participants. Methodology: This study used cross-sectional study design. A total sample of 420 people aged 60 and above in Truong An Ward, Hue city were interviewd. The SF36 was used to measure the QOL of participants. Results: Percentage of the elderly taking part in physical activity were 66%. 49% reported having the habit of taking part in social activities. The majority of the elderly get their QOL level in three health fields, namely physical, mental and general health at above average. (56.0, 60.7 and 60.8 respectively). There were significant associations between physical activities, social activities and QOL among participants. Conclusion: The percentage of the elderly taking part in physical and social activities were still low. Besides, QOL of the elderly at the research location was not really high. It’s important to encourage the elderly taking part in physical and social activities to improve their quality of life. Key words: Physical activities, social activities, QOL, the elderly


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 2595
Author(s):  
Balakrishnan Ramalingam ◽  
Abdullah Aamir Hayat ◽  
Mohan Rajesh Elara ◽  
Braulio Félix Gómez ◽  
Lim Yi ◽  
...  

The pavement inspection task, which mainly includes crack and garbage detection, is essential and carried out frequently. The human-based or dedicated system approach for inspection can be easily carried out by integrating with the pavement sweeping machines. This work proposes a deep learning-based pavement inspection framework for self-reconfigurable robot named Panthera. Semantic segmentation framework SegNet was adopted to segment the pavement region from other objects. Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) based object detection is used to detect and localize pavement defects and garbage. Furthermore, Mobile Mapping System (MMS) was adopted for the geotagging of the defects. The proposed system was implemented and tested with the Panthera robot having NVIDIA GPU cards. The experimental results showed that the proposed technique identifies the pavement defects and litters or garbage detection with high accuracy. The experimental results on the crack and garbage detection are presented. It is found that the proposed technique is suitable for deployment in real-time for garbage detection and, eventually, sweeping or cleaning tasks.


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (09) ◽  
pp. S8-S13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thiago Marinho ◽  
Christopher Widdowson ◽  
Amy Oetting ◽  
Arun Lakshmanan ◽  
Hang Cui ◽  
...  

This article demonstrates a multidisciplinary approach that proposes to augment future caregiving by prolonged independence of older adults. The human–robot system allows the elderly to cooperate with small flying robots through an appropriate interface. ASPIRE provides a platform where high-level controllers can be designed to provide a layer of abstraction between the high-level task requests, the perceptual needs of the users, and the physical demands of the robotic platforms. With a robust framework that has the capability to account for human perception and comfort level, one can provide perceived safety for older adults, and further, add expressively that facilitates communication and interaction continuously throughout the stimulation. The proposed framework relies on an iterative process of low-level controllers design through experimental data collected from psychological trials. Future work includes the exploration of multiple carebots to cooperatively assist in caregiving tasks based on human-centered design approach.


2013 ◽  
Vol 765-767 ◽  
pp. 630-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chong Lin Zheng ◽  
Kuang Rong Hao ◽  
Yong Sheng Ding

Collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm is the most successful technology for recommendation systems. However, traditional collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm does not consider the change of time information. For this problem,this paper improve the algorithm with two new methods:Predict score incorporated with time information in order to reflect the user interest change; Recommend according to scores by adding the weight information determined by the item life cycle. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the traditional item in accuracy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Dardari ◽  
Nicoló Decarli ◽  
Anna Guerra ◽  
Ashraf Al-Rimawi ◽  
Víctor Marín Puchades ◽  
...  

In this paper, an ultrawideband localization system to improve the cyclists’ safety is presented. The architectural solutions proposed consist of tags placed on bikes, whose positions have to be estimated, and anchors, acting as reference nodes, located at intersections and/or on vehicles. The peculiarities of the localization system in terms of accuracy and cost enable its adoption with enhanced risk assessment units situated on the infrastructure/vehicle, depending on the architecture chosen, as well as real-time warning to the road users. Experimental results reveal that the localization error, in both static and dynamic conditions, is below 50 cm in most of the cases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1079
Author(s):  
Xianglong Wan ◽  
Jiaxin Ma ◽  
Yichi Zhang ◽  
Takahiro Endo ◽  
Fumitoshi Matsuno

In this paper, we propose two control methods for driving a power-assisted cart made for walking assistance for the elderly. The optimal assistance ratio (OAR) and disturbance observer-based (DOB) methods properly adjust the motor output of the cart with high operational efficiency in response to changes in the environment. Healthy subjects walked with the cart on several road surfaces under various conditions, and the experimental results indicate the high operational efficiency of the two proposed methods. Meanwhile, their drawbacks are also discussed herein. The two methods can be used separately or combined according to the application. The OAR method is more suitable for indoor use, while the DOB method is applicable for outdoor applications. Combining these two methods could overcome the mentioned drawbacks.


Author(s):  
Marco A. Meggiolaro ◽  
Constantinos Mavroidis ◽  
Steven Dubowsky

Abstract A method is presented to identify the source of end-effector positioning errors in large manipulators using experimentally measured data. Both errors due to manufacturing tolerances and other geometric errors and elastic structural deformations are identified. These error sources are used to predict, and compensate for, the end-point errors as a function of configuration and measured forces. The method is applied to a new large high accuracy medical robot. Experimental results show that the method is able to effectively correct for the errors in the system.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-284
Author(s):  
Mariana Varkala Lanuez ◽  
Fernanda Varkala Lanuez ◽  
Eduardo Gunther Montero ◽  
Wilson Jacob Filho

ABSTRACT Objectives: To assess the effect of exercise on gait using two different programs: a group of aerobic exercises (Group A, n = 18) and a group of flexibility and balance exercises (Group B, n = 19). Methods: A casualized controlled study, in which each sample controlled itself, was undertaken. The sample comprised 37 male and female subjects, aged from 60 to 90 years, from the outpatient clinic of the Geriatrics Unit of Hospital das Clínicas of Faculdade de Medicina of Universidade de São Paulo; the patients were sedentary and had not exercised regularly during the past six months. Results: Improvement of gait was seen mainly in the group that did specific exercises. Conclusion: The results of this study underline the importance of physical exercises in sedentary elderly subjects, but show the need for programming the exercises towards specific goals, which can optimize the results of this tool of health promotion for the elderly.


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