Social robots have been long under development. What about implementation? LIFEBOTS Exchange suggests future actions. COMFORTage will pilot the use of social robots.
What did LIFEBOTS Exchange do?
LIFEBOTS Exchange has been a 5-year project that will end by February 2025. It has focused on the uses that can be made of social robots. It has supported secondments and exchanges between early career employees. They come from several countries in the European Union, and beyond. Study visits were also made by company representatives to Japan and South Korea.
On coming to the end of the project, LIFEBOTS Exchange produced a small booklet, based on its work. It takes a look at more than 20 social robots. It will be published in February 2025.
Five blocks for future action were highlighted: policies, ethical and legal, readiness, organisational, and financial.
Through a survey, the project gathered the opinions of its consortium members on future trends in social robots. Responses offered views on: benefits, challenges, preparatory actions, policy actions, financial support, and priorities. Akin to COMFORTage, among the preparatory actions were co-creative development processes.
Three major take-aways, which may be of interest as the COMFORTage pilots advance are:
- Social robots transcend traditional robotics.
- Development requires an interdisciplinary approach.
- Implementation hinges on a multi-level strategy.
As LIFEBOTS winds down, in terms of next steps, the baton can now be taken up by projects like COMFORTage.
What is COMFORTage planning?
COMFORTage is a much larger project than LIFEBOTS Exchange. It is one year into its work. The consortium aims to run as many as 13 pilots. The five clusters of pilots focus around dementia and frailty. Many of these will start to operate during 2025.
While COMFORTage’s preoccupation is on ways of alleviating dementia and frailty throughout the life-course, one of the technologies it is exploring is social robots. Its pilots focus on older adults.
At least two pilots will take place in living labs and digital innovation labs in Greece and Spain. They include CERTH’s nZeb Smart House testbed – Greece’s first smart house to resemble a domestic building – and INTRAS’s MINDLAB. Among the social robots to be tested are CERTH’s prototype, CERTHBot, and Pepper, one of the earliest-available social robots. Older adults, carers, and health and care professionals’ responses and reactions to these social robots will be explored in focus groups and through interviews or surveys.
COMFORTage will start to explore more exactly, from May 2025 onwards, what its pilots will be doing on social robots.
What’s in it for people who want to use social robots?
Interactions between projects can be very useful. Much that has been learned over recent years can be transferred into, and built on, by new projects. Hence: from LIFEBOTS to COMFORTage.
A useful step forward would be to introduce LIFEBOTS Exchange consortium members to the work of COMFORTage. Options could involve the various communities and networks that COMFORTage is building, but more direct engagement might be in at least two of the COMFORTage pilots on co-creation.
Let’s see how this experience-sharing and knowledge-sharing on social robots affects the successful improvement of the quality of life of health and care end-users, their carers/family members, and professional employees too!
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