Development of Service Robot System With Multiple Human User Interface

Interactive human user interfaces are indispensability because robot has not enough capability in recognition and judgment in performing a service task at facilities or at home. We have been developing a network distributed Human-Assistance Robotic System in order to improve care cost and the QoL (Quality of Life) of elderly people in the population-aging society. Many elderly persons with some chronic disease give up independent living because of difficulty in moving their body to take something such as operating objects in a refrigerator. Implementation of human-assist robotic system enables elderly or disabled people in need for support and care to live independently in their accustomed home environments as long as they wish. This not only fulfils their desire for independence and autonomy, it also helps to improve the costs for the individual treatment. Many service robotic systems have been developed for the Web (World Wide Web) in recent past, as the Internet is low cost and widely available. Schulz et al. (Schulz et al, 2000) and Maeyama (Maeyama et al., 2000) developed museum tour-guide robotic systems that enable ordinary people at home or some other place to remotely view works of art in a museum by manipulating the vision of the robot using a Web browser. Lung N. et al developed an Internet-based robotic system that allows the user to control a robot arm with five degrees of freedom in performing the tedious household task of sorting laundry (Nagi et al., 2002). Coristine et al. developed PumaPaint Project that is an online robot that allows World Wide Web users to remotely create original artwork. This site had thousands of users who consider it entertaining (Coristine et al., 2004; Stein et al., 2000). Our HARSP (HumanAssistance Robotic System Project) project consists on developing a Human-Assistance Robotic distributed System in order to improve care cost and the QoL of the elderly people in the population-aging society (Jia et al., 2002). The proposed system has the potential to provide elderly persons local services in: a) Intelligent reminding: remind elderly persons about important activities such as taking medical, eating meals, visiting the bathroom, or scheduling medical appointments. b) Data collection and surveillance: robot can assist the aged or disabled in systematic data collection. Robotic systems may be soon able to inform human caregivers for assistance if they detect that an elderly person has fallen or the other emergency. c) Daily services: many elderly persons with some chronic disease give up independent living because of difficulty in moving their body to take something such as operating