AI Eat
This project is a scientific experiment and it is not a commercial product.
This project makes use of a commercial assistive feeding device OBI and investigates if it is possible to effectively advance in robot autonomy and human-robot interaction.
As World’s population is ageing, long-term care for elderly citizens will become an increasing concern for society. To manage these transition, healthcare policies are heavily focused on extending the independent life of the elderly, with the dual aim of increasing their quality of life (QoL) and reducing the costs of care. Under this premise the need for automation of some of the care tasks related to elderly or people with disabilities is growing due to the lack of enough care professionals and associated costs. Assistive robotics in this field can help providing services in low added value tasks than relief time of care of human professionals while gathering valuable data that can be used to improve interventions and predict future decline onsets.
Benefits: the robot is a tool that the caregiver (professional or not) can use; the caregiver can program the robot behaviour to adapt the robot interactions; the user is empowered by controlling the feeding process; the robot gathers valuable data that can be used for prevention.
Co-creation: The development of the project has involved professionals from Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili and researchers from IRI. The initiative is collaboration between LabORA (Assistive Robotics Open Lab) and BALL (Barcelona Aging coLLaboratory). Several co-creation sessions have been used to learn the desirable key features needed to design and implement AI Eat to fulfill the needs of the hospital care team. Pilot studies in the hospital will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed solution.
Antecedents: The work in this project is largely influenced by two PhD theses developed at IRI, one about user preference modelling for robots (and our first attempt to use robots in feeding assistance) and one about robot personalisation from both caregiver and user perspectives.
Appearances in Press
TVE Catalunya: https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/linformatiu/un-robot-que-ajuda-a-menjar-solucions-que-avancen-cap-a-un-envelliment-digne/6722191/
Ara: https://www.ara.cat/societat/salut/robot-catala-donar-sopar-als-avis_1_4529496.html
La Razón: https://www.larazon.es/cataluna/20221026/6yfk3245xffyxnymqfvdh7ljku.html
La Vanguardia: https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20221026/8583074/desarrollo-robot-dar-comer-personas-discapacitadas.html
Crónica Global: https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/vida/crean-brazo-robotico-dara-comer-personas-dependientes_733700_102.html
CCMA-3/24 (ACN): https://www.ccma.cat/324/un-laboratori-dinnovacio-digital-dissenya-un-robot-per-ajudar-a-menjar-persones-grans/noticia/3192415/