Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I will present you an ICT view on the problem related
to the use of robotics in real life settings, basically novel ICT solutions for remote care.
It is basically the viewpoint of one research institution and member of the Kesara consortium.
ISMB is a non-profit research and innovation center operating in the information and communication
technology, though we have not, basically we are not representing any particular corporate
need, so it is simply viewpoint of the people dealing with ICT solutions as such. Basically
the disease is a reality. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease could affect new population
going to form basically the majority of the European population. It is estimated that
it will become the fourth leading case of death in Europe by 2030, but maybe also worldwide,
and therefore it is reality bringing some economic burdens, and there is an estimation
that European health care system will not be sustainable to support basically the economical
load because of the support ratio which is going to become 1 to 5, that means five seniors
and only one active worker. That means new COPD care solutions are needed to keep the
care sustainable, and basically the first idea is to try how to complement the human
actor by the artificial cognition by an artifact represented by the robots. Therefore the social
relationship with health care professionals and care giver is the reality on which it
is possible to play by the means of ICT solutions. The social relationship means how to master the
social care network by changing the actors. Second point, the study of the acceptance of
robotic intelligence system is a key point because the user is going to use or not to use the new
SOROGAT solution or the new state-of-the-art care reality which could be developed and
transform it in long-lasting relationship between the human and the robot. The evaluation of the
usability of the systems like KSRR is also the key point powering the road to the commercial
exploitation of the software solutions and related hardware. Therefore adapting to the new market
with 1 to 5 support ratio, so we have in mind that the target user of this kind of solution is the
senior citizen by 2030. Humanoid robot plus novel software could be a new COPD actor. Therefore we
can sell the robot, we can sell the software or we can sell the bundle composed by some hardware
plus some software. State-of-the-art is dominated by telemedicine solutions. That means it is my
decision to use it or not to use. If I have some time, if I'm willing to use the telemedicine
setup, I'm using something which is available at the place of care. If I'm not staying in the place
of the care, unfortunately I cannot interact with the telemedicine setup. The same thing is one of
the core capabilities of KSRR and basically it is a stimuli the system could obtain. The ubiquitous
monitoring system is able to acquire several parameters to store the information in the
database, to make it available to the other intelligent systems for future activities for
the data processing, decision making and so on. Basically there is this main information set
coming from this kind of systems and this system is necessarily ubiquitous because the living
environment is complex and the main actor is not static, is moving. The information flows is another
object to care, to manage and ubiquitous monitoring system could do two things, could perform analytical
processing of accumulated historical series but could do also something more. In KSRR approach we
are putting one cognitive artifact inside the environment and we are saying that I'm here to
help you. Which kind of help? It depends on the application. The sensorial data plus the rules is
an enabler to undertake the decision making and therefore to be able to trigger an action and
finally to actuate or not to actuate some action between the actions an assistive action could be
also implemented. So interacting with now, now it is a robot used by this project. So it is small
humanoid robot and I will show you what the people are saying about it but basically thanks to the
combination of the ubiquitous sensing set and the humanoid robot, basically the interactivity could
be set up. That means that the missing capability to process the real-time events which is a significant
of losing an opportunity and challenge or even money and this is represented on this picture,
it could be replaced by the challenge to capture the opportunity to process the real-life events and
therefore to be able to react on the challenges in real-life processes. That means the process has
a starting and ending point so there are period events to be able to understand and the human
being causing something which becomes measurable, manifesting a phenomenon captured by the monitoring
system is going to be transformed in the model of the process dynamics and as such is useful to do any
data mining, any data warehousing, any reasoning and so on. Test settings were already shown, basically
what is important in this picture, we have an environment, we have some sensing tools, we have some
actuation tools, it is not necessarily that the robot is the only actuator inside the environment, we could
have also an intelligent house, so we could have domotics, we could have actuators and in KSRR, in Austrian
instance, we have implemented the integration with E-Home Austrian Intelligent Housing so we can reduce or
increase the temperature, we could operate the air conditioning, we could change many things by using the
home automation. So there are actors or one actor inside this environment because a KSRR project is
interacting with only one person at time and there are several situations which could be managed, so it is a
playground, very interesting playground for assistive actions. The implementation is a lot of hardware, so there is the
sensorial data, there are medical sensors, there are other sensors and finally we have the intelligent
control actuation, so there is a lot of technical tasks, there is a lot of challenges, there is a lot of dedicated
software, so we could implement and sell the function going to detect something, we could produce the model, the
subsystem, doing the recognition of something, navigation, how to look at the person, but the problem is that we have to
bundle all these solutions in one software product, as such separate products are interesting but cannot be sold on the
market. So how to integrate all of them in one meaningful system which will be self-sustainable because the person should
use. So, for example, ubiquitous monitoring could be seen as a system complemented by human robot interaction or system
complementing the human robot interaction by means of the enriched context-sensitiveness including the main interaction
agents and this is a novelty, the relationship between the environment and the interaction agents is the business enabler because the
robot, the patient and changing positions is a starting point to think about the conceptually new software, so by managing by the means of ICT
tools by the software going to be sold on the market, the relationship between the robot, the patient in time space inside the house,
indoor environment, that means to match the positions, the change of the positions and the action which are useful, which are necessary, which
could be undertaken by the human body or cannot be undertaken by the human body, means the playground for software, for augmentation, for
replacement, for social care, for assistive care and so on. So how to result in improved reliability and trust? Now robot is a humanoid robot, 57
centimeters, has a lot of sensors, has a navigation capability, can recognize the user positioning, could attract the attention and so on, so the
intelligent software could exploit this hardware in order to deliver new operations, new interactivity with the human being. It could operate in indoor and in outdoor, but
likely for assistive care it's better to limit it to the indoor environment, which is unfortunately is the most expensive and more difficult because it's
unpredictable, because it's not deterministic and so on. So basically we have a number of other devices and we have asked users what they do things about this
environment, so which environmental control would you accept at home? And the people was answering in this sequence, so it's okay to start from heating, it's okay to add the
control of the windows, it's okay to manage the home appliances, lights, gas, flooding, conditioning and so on, but no one is speaking about the robot, interesting
point. Therefore we are going to present them the new embodiment, for example Sarah is implementing the doing respiratory exercises, typically it is activity made by the
specialized caregiver, for example the nurse is showing how to do the exercise, someone is observing how the patient is doing the exercise, if doing, because the patient could decide no I don't want to do it, and therefore it is a complex task because we need the modeling, we have to assess what is happening, how to do it correctly, how to observe. Another possibility is how to mitigate the harmful conditions, for example we know that COPD
patients are vulnerable to unfavorable environmental conditions, PM10 is an example of the fine particle pollutions, but in this case PM2.5 is more dangerous because going directly inside the lung, and if there is a long period of high PM10 concentration in the air, COPD patient to avoid this hazard maybe should stay at home and also appreciate
that people is willing to get it in some way, so there is a difference to offer it through the domotic interface or to send nearby the person, the robot and to ask do you want really I wish increase for better call for the temperature and we can do it. So it seems my personal agent, it seems my personal trainer, so the people is also establishing the relationship between the human being and the robot
and it's my object, so it's like something that I am doing with other human beings, so theoretically the role of the caregiver could be transferred partly to the robot, therefore it makes me calm, it seems extremely useful to remind the measurement and pills and very useful, very useful, ok, but
what else? I need the evaluation of the data, I cannot elaborate and process all the data and all the situation, so I need some cognitive help from the robot, I need the assessment, I need the evaluation of something, basically there are three things, it makes, that means it makes sense, the robot leaves the footprint, there is an effect.
It is useful, that means there is a need going to be satisfied by the robot and finally there is the wish, I need additional functionalities, then very surprising judgement, we have delivered the wrist watch with the panic button, so in certain cases the person could push the button and call the doctor, the caregiver,
by pressing the button I expect to be able to call the now, that means that now the robot could have the role of the caregiver, the person by pushing the button is not expecting that the doctor will be going or someone else, but the now will start to walk.
Therefore, it is possible to make another step beyond in this case, in addition to the telemedicine setup, we can enrich it by the humanoid robot and we can also add the environmental control functionalities, we have the electric energy, we have kenex and other industrial protocols, we have industrial automation,
so possibly the transferability between domestic home control and industrial users, industrial control could also be considered by these applications, oh sorry, it is too quick, and in addition the people are saying that they need the capability to evaluate something, how to deliver the capability to judge,
how to tell them if the physical exercise was okay or not okay, we need the capability to recognize who is the actor, so the robot definitely needs to discriminate between one actor and another one, one thing is to observe the figure and totally different is to place the semantic label, it is Balu or Mowgli,
we can do it by image processing, we can do it by assessing the way we are moving, so the moving pattern, there are other techniques, but basically this is one step, another step we have something, we have an abstraction and we are dealing with the abstractions and we need to assess the human activities,
for example in kesera we are speaking about exercises, the capability to judge, there is a process one doing nothing, there is a process two doing exercises, there is a process three which could be again process one and so on, so how to manage the processes, we could think about the new cognitive capabilities, we could think about new methods and it is again the new software, so new capability is new software,
finally the conclusions, kesera was implemented as doing and interacting, so these are two major points in the use of the robot in this project, doing by the robot interacting with the human and implementing the human-robot interaction,
the next step is to empower robots to operate autonomously, which is not yet the state of the art, but the domestic environment typically is not controlled by the human being, so by deploying the robot to the external world we have to think how to operate autonomously, how to avoid any loop,
because any cognitive function implemented using the state machine could be in the state from which there is no exit, so by implementing new solutions it is absolutely necessary to bring the robot from in loop to the starting point, starting position.
Another example is how to judge about the human activities and the conclusion is that novel COPD care solutions are new cognitive capabilities implemented in new software replacing or accompanying, complementing the human actions and finally to sell this kind of software on the market there is a peculiarity,
it is useful only if all components are working in a coordinated way, if something, small thing is not working, the whole solution is filing, thank you very much, more information on the website of the project.
Any questions?
You mentioned something about rules, you said the robot is detecting sensing, then apply rules and then decide an action or another one.
Did you implement that, what kind of rules and the way you implement this rule?
Ok, one of the deliverables of this project, one of the earliest deliverables available publicly on the website is about the care protocols and rules of COPD care.
Basically the domain experts and explicitly people from Maccabee has tried to give us the formalized representation of the rules, how to manage this COPD, for example in certain cases there is a need to acquire the measurement of the oxygenation and for example when doing the respiratory gymnastics there is a level of difficulty,
which should be selected depending on the current condition of the patient.
So we have the protocols, care protocols, we have the guidelines on how to deal with COPD and we have populated the case system by certain rules taking them from the best practices in COPD care.
Therefore, in case of a demonstrator, in case of a prototype, before offering the respiratory gymnastics we are asking eventually missing measurements just to determine which difficulty level of the exercise to present.
So it's very dedicated to the COPD care?
Yes, yes.
And you implemented them with if, then, else or you use more fuzzy logic system or?
Not exactly if then there is a kind of reasoning, it's a simplified reasoning system.
We have included a number of monitoring functions, so it is implemented by the functions which could be replaced by other reasoning techniques in other implementations.
Basically our functionalities are judging on the immediate values, so it is if then.
We are judging also on the co-presence of different classes of parameters and we are also judging over the long time series.
So we have also data mining and data warehousing techniques.
Thank you.