Robot carers

A BBC article about robots which might be used for care of the elderly.  Rather than having sceptical comments from caring organisations a better strategy would be to collaborate with them in the research.

If I were someone doing this research probably the way I'd approach it would be to consult social services organisations who work in care homes on exactly what it is that they do on a daily basis, and I'd also do some time and motion studies for different scenarios.  Only then can you identify what the relevant needs are and which of those might be amenable to automation.  My guess is that having an anthropomorphic talking head, although it's very mediagenic, is not a high priority in this line of work.

Mobile robots probably do have their place, and will be useful for communication, picking things up and moving things around.  Even more lucrative though will be wearable technology.  A device which you can wear which continuously monitors your heart rate and blood pressure, and which can alert a nurse or doctor automatically in an emergency would be useful and probably also commercially viable.  Wearable devices which assist mobility are also the lowest hanging fruit in terms of possible commercial robotics opportunities for the elderly.  An exoskeleton-like device which could be strapped to the legs which assists in walking or standing up, with at least equivalent support functionality to a walking stick would have no problems in selling if it could be manufactured in the right price range - even if it were a relatively primitive electromechanical type of system.