A Korean Team Develops Dementia-caring Robot, Marking Emergency Call Automatically
( http://www.worldrobotconference.com/ )
As reported by Central Daily News, Korea on May 24, a robot at height the same as a child about 1.4m has started talking in the conference room of Gangnam Dementia Supporting Center, Samseong-dong, Seoul. The robot can sing, shake its body and move arms rhythmically.
The robot making the elder laugh and follow to sing is dementia-prevention robot SILBOT. SILBOT, jointly developed by KIST, Samsung Seoul Hospital and Ewha Womans University five years ago, has been applied to institutions such as dementia supporting center.
In the near future, people can see SILBOT in houses of the dementia patients. The research team of Korea announced on May 23 “we have started developing household robot “mini-SILBOT” (tentative) to help treat dementia”. The program has been selected as “Robot Industry Integration Core Technology Development Program” of Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and gained research fund of KRW 5.9 Billion (about CNY 33 Million) for four years. Ewha Womans University as the center, Sungkyunkwan University, POSTECH (Pohang University of Science And Technology) and University of Auckland (New Zealand), as well as Robocare, the risky enterprise incorporated by KIST will participate in the development.
The mini-SILBOT will be designed as one third as size of existing SILBOT, and used to help daily life and dementia patients and exchange emotions with patients. The camera and sensor on the robot can feel expression, action and pulse of the patient by smart band wore by patients so as to master their status. If the patient is judged with unstable emotion, the robot will play music helping stabilizing emotion, or find out solution in favor of meditation. If the status of patient becomes severer, the robot will contact guardian of the patient or call 119. All records will be stored in big data.
The target of the research team is to finish development by 2020, and start commercialization one year later. The price of Mini-SILBOT shall be below KRW2 Million. The research team plans to apply the specimen of Mini-SILBOT to clinical test for dementia patients. Professional Kim Gun Ha explained that the clinical test will analyze the MRI of dementia patients using Mini-SILBOT by seasons so as to confirm effectiveness of the robot.
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