Centre for Software Innovation

Through the CSI, an exciting project between the University of Auckland (UofA) and ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) Korea to advance care for the aged and disabled day-to-day services is currently being developed. The technologies and expertise of ETRI and the UofA bring unique capabilities to a new partnership for research into this vital and pressing area of population health. The CSI is still looking for NZ industry partners and collaborators in this project as part of its FRST funding commitment so read on……..

Project Vision

The menial, repetitive, and physically demanding task normally performed by health care workers could be reassigned to robotic assistance. Robots with good human-robot interaction capabilities may be assigned to provide interactions to enrich the social experiences of patients. Other tasks can also be performed if the robot machines can be programmed and equipped with specialized features, including monitoring, vital signs, assisting in the dispensing of medicines, or helping with basic communication tasks. Assigning these tasks to robotic assistance will

• reduce cost in health care settings by deferring some tasks to the robot which would otherwise take skilled people
• increase the quality of the healthcare experience for patients, improving psychological wellbeing
• improve the level of patent monitoring with robot helper
• use robots to collect data and log events, relieving staff of this chore
• increase the capacity of aged care facilities without degradation of services
• Automation of some aspects of the health care system is an alternative to increasing staff in health care facilities, and to extend some services to the home

The robots are networked to a central service which delivers much of the IT support needed for the robots to function; the business model is to deliver services via this network, and the robot as the end provider to the user.

Project Objectives

• westernizing the robot's dialog
• add aged health related functions
• add new robotic capabilities e.g. augmented reality technologies
• standardized robotic software systems
• integrate health IT systems with the URC networked services for robots
• psychological /cognitive studies of the effects and affects of the robot in a clinical sitting
• optimize the robots and environment (wifi, speech and noise, aged healthcare spaces) test the robot systems within an aged care facility
• identify any social or ethical considerations

What’s in it for a NZ Company participant?

• A NZ company can leverage off the FRST funded research to develop or enhance its own R&D programme. Being part of the URC infrastructure development opens up sales, new market and distribution opportunities in
  • Elderly care
  • Korea
  • Enhanced features of existing capabilities
  • The project is an opportunity to leverage off a major research project to develop or enhance existing R&D
• The demand for low cost reliable elderly care services will escalate with the cost of elderly care and the number of elderly and disabled people worldwide
• High profile partners in research and industry
• Robotics is a major source of future services in the home and lifestyle environments
• The URC concept is dependent on networked services delivered from a central server farm across a wide network to inexpensive ‘thin’ robots deployed in homes and aged healthcare facilities; there are opportunities to provide additional services and connections to healthcare IT systems using this network based service deployment.

Interested in learning more or participating?

Contact the project's Business Manager Sarah Haydon at s.haydon@auckland.ac.nz or the Project Manager Bruce Macdonald at b.macdonald@auckland.ac.nz