Studies in health technology and informatics, 2015
The field of "AAL Robotics", combining AAL and robotics as disciplines, has not yet bee... more The field of "AAL Robotics", combining AAL and robotics as disciplines, has not yet been precisely defined and does not present accepted structures and concepts that would allow to communicate unequivocally its methods, projects, and approaches. The paper presents a method of defining and categorizing AAL robots and presents the resulting classes of robots with regard to the activities they assist. The classification is useful in that it is able to cover the breadth of the field, but a more fine-grained description of functionalities will be needed in further research to establish the potential of robots to assist independent living of older adults.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2015
'Robots in healthcare&amp... more 'Robots in healthcare' is a very trending topic. This paper gives an overview of currently and commonly used methods to gather user needs and requirements in research projects in the field of assistive robotics. Common strategies between authors are presented as well as examples of exceptions, which can help future researchers to find methods suitable for their own work. Typical problems of the field are discussed and partial solutions are proposed.
2012 Sixth International Conference on Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems, 2012
Abstract This paper describes the evaluation of human-robot-interaction (HRI) related to the futu... more Abstract This paper describes the evaluation of human-robot-interaction (HRI) related to the future use of a humanoid robotic system as interface in intelligent home environments. The core motivation was to enhance the user interaction between smart home systems and ...
Proceedings of the 5th International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 2011
Within the project "eHome" a prototype of an assistive home system was developed, aiming to prolo... more Within the project "eHome" a prototype of an assistive home system was developed, aiming to prolong the independent life of elderly people at home. Besides communication, e-access and safety relevant features, a core part of this system is an automatic fall detection, which utilizes floor-mounted accelerometers to gather body-sound signals that typically occur during a human fall. This approach targets to avoid acceptance, usability and reliability issues of available body-mounted fall detectors. The system was developed with focus on practical applicability, reliability and exploitability. The prototype was evaluated successfully in laboratory and during 507 days in reallife at homes of persons from the target group. During the laboratory trials a sensitivity of 87% and a specificity of 97.7% could be achieved for a defined fall scenario and across four tested floors. Further research is suggested to investigate floor dependencies of the fall detection performance.
The near future will see an increasing demand of elder care and a shortage of professional and in... more The near future will see an increasing demand of elder care and a shortage of professional and informal caregivers. In this context, ageing societies would benefit from the design of intelligent homes that provide assistance. The choice of interfaces between the assistive environment and the user is of great importance and determines the degree of user acceptance of this technology. Socially assistive robots are one of the most promising interfaces. Their embodiment and multimodal communication channels could potentially provide a large number of services that otherwise would have to be carried out by a variety of dedicated systems. Furthermore, evidence suggests that people perceive robots more as companions and social actors than tools and this is likely to steer user acceptance positively. This paper presents the authors' work related to the EU-FP7 project KSERA, a project that aims at introducing a socially assistive robot that acts as a proactive communication interface in smart home environments. In particular, it gives an overview of (1) human-robot interaction studies conducted in Eindhoven (The Netherlands) whose general aim was to preliminary assess the added value of socially assistive robots in intelligent homes and (2) the KSERA project field trials in Schwechat (Vienna) and Tel Aviv (Israel) that tested an integrated smart-home/robot system with real end users (N=16) in three real-world scenarios. Overall, results show that socially assistive robots positively affect user experience and motivation compared to standard smart environment interfaces such as touch screens. However, people still tend to prefer conventional interfaces for receiving information.
We would like to thank all participants of the conducted studies for their time and dedication. T... more We would like to thank all participants of the conducted studies for their time and dedication. The study "PhysicAAL" was funded by the Austrian ministry for transport, innovation and technology within the "Benefit" programme.
Within the FP7 project KSERA a biped robot was used within two main user trials as an embodied ag... more Within the FP7 project KSERA a biped robot was used within two main user trials as an embodied agent to support older people during daily life. This paper describes parts of the conducted trials involving 10 users in 32 test sessions to generate results regarding the technical validity and acceptance of the approach by evaluating approx. 20 hours of human robot interaction. Acceptance and technical issues were discovered and are described in the results section giving advice how to improve the acceptance in future prototypes and general limitations of the approach are discussed.
Auf Grund von technischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Hürden besteht ein starkes Altersgefälle in ... more Auf Grund von technischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Hürden besteht ein starkes Altersgefälle in Bezug auf die Nutzung von internet-basierten Diensten. Im Rahmen des geförderten Projektes "myTablet" wurde gemeinsam mit einer Gruppe von SeniorInnen evaluiert, in wiefern aktuelle Tablet PCs geeignet sind, diese Hürden zu minimieren. Zu diesem Zweck wurden sowohl eine Studie mit elf SeniorInnen zur generellen Benutzbarkeit solcher Geräte als auch vier einmonatige Feldtests durchgeführt, in denen ältere Personen ein Tablet nach einer Einschulung für einen längeren Zeitraum selbstständig verwenden konnten. Die Ergebnisse der Studien zeigen eine hohe Zufriedenheit und Akzeptanz der Nutzergruppe und legen darum einen stärkeren Fokus auf die Entwicklung von Tablet Applikationen speziell für die Zielgruppe der SeniorInnen nahe, sowie Initiativen um dem erhöhten Informationsbedarf der Zielgruppe in dieser Hinsicht gerecht zu werden.
In this paper we describe the use of accelerometers in a system aiming to detect Activities of Da... more In this paper we describe the use of accelerometers in a system aiming to detect Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) of elderly people in home environments. Our aim is to enable senior citizens to remain in their familiar home environments as long as possible by increasing their feeling for safety and autonomy in a minimally invasive way. Therefore we developed a ZigBee-based smart system which uses distributed accelerometers as main sensory component and does not need the resident to wear any artifact. In this way certain activity patterns could be recognized respecting the users’ privacy. We gathered certain ADLs manually from the raw data and validated them in different ways. In this manner 151 out of 155 ADLs could be verified. In this paper an overview of the system together with the findings of the real life tests are presented.
Internet usage in Austria varies between age groups in a way that only about 30% of older users a... more Internet usage in Austria varies between age groups in a way that only about 30% of older users above 60 have access to Internet services compared to nearly 100% in the age group between 14 and 30. This digital divide exists because of technical, social and economical ...
ABSTRACT The ageing population phenomenon is pushing the design of innovative solutions to provid... more ABSTRACT The ageing population phenomenon is pushing the design of innovative solutions to provide assistance to the elderly. In this context a socially–assistive robot can act as a proactive interface in a smart-home environment, providing multimodal communication channels and generating positive feelings in users. The present paper reports results of a short term and a long term evaluation of a small socially assistive humanoid robot in a smart home environment. Eight elderly people tested an integrated smart–home robot system in five real–world scenarios. Six of the participants experienced the system in two sessions over a two week period; the other two participants had a prolonged experience of eight sessions over a three month period. Results showed that the small humanoid robot was trusted by the participants. A cross–cultural comparison showed that results were not due to the cultural background of the participants. The long term evaluation showed that the participants might engage in an emotional relationship with the robot, but that perceived enjoyment might decrease over time.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2015
The field of "AAL Robotics", combining AAL and robotics as disciplines, has not yet bee... more The field of "AAL Robotics", combining AAL and robotics as disciplines, has not yet been precisely defined and does not present accepted structures and concepts that would allow to communicate unequivocally its methods, projects, and approaches. The paper presents a method of defining and categorizing AAL robots and presents the resulting classes of robots with regard to the activities they assist. The classification is useful in that it is able to cover the breadth of the field, but a more fine-grained description of functionalities will be needed in further research to establish the potential of robots to assist independent living of older adults.
Studies in health technology and informatics, 2015
'Robots in healthcare&amp... more 'Robots in healthcare' is a very trending topic. This paper gives an overview of currently and commonly used methods to gather user needs and requirements in research projects in the field of assistive robotics. Common strategies between authors are presented as well as examples of exceptions, which can help future researchers to find methods suitable for their own work. Typical problems of the field are discussed and partial solutions are proposed.
2012 Sixth International Conference on Complex, Intelligent, and Software Intensive Systems, 2012
Abstract This paper describes the evaluation of human-robot-interaction (HRI) related to the futu... more Abstract This paper describes the evaluation of human-robot-interaction (HRI) related to the future use of a humanoid robotic system as interface in intelligent home environments. The core motivation was to enhance the user interaction between smart home systems and ...
Proceedings of the 5th International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 2011
Within the project "eHome" a prototype of an assistive home system was developed, aiming to prolo... more Within the project "eHome" a prototype of an assistive home system was developed, aiming to prolong the independent life of elderly people at home. Besides communication, e-access and safety relevant features, a core part of this system is an automatic fall detection, which utilizes floor-mounted accelerometers to gather body-sound signals that typically occur during a human fall. This approach targets to avoid acceptance, usability and reliability issues of available body-mounted fall detectors. The system was developed with focus on practical applicability, reliability and exploitability. The prototype was evaluated successfully in laboratory and during 507 days in reallife at homes of persons from the target group. During the laboratory trials a sensitivity of 87% and a specificity of 97.7% could be achieved for a defined fall scenario and across four tested floors. Further research is suggested to investigate floor dependencies of the fall detection performance.
The near future will see an increasing demand of elder care and a shortage of professional and in... more The near future will see an increasing demand of elder care and a shortage of professional and informal caregivers. In this context, ageing societies would benefit from the design of intelligent homes that provide assistance. The choice of interfaces between the assistive environment and the user is of great importance and determines the degree of user acceptance of this technology. Socially assistive robots are one of the most promising interfaces. Their embodiment and multimodal communication channels could potentially provide a large number of services that otherwise would have to be carried out by a variety of dedicated systems. Furthermore, evidence suggests that people perceive robots more as companions and social actors than tools and this is likely to steer user acceptance positively. This paper presents the authors' work related to the EU-FP7 project KSERA, a project that aims at introducing a socially assistive robot that acts as a proactive communication interface in smart home environments. In particular, it gives an overview of (1) human-robot interaction studies conducted in Eindhoven (The Netherlands) whose general aim was to preliminary assess the added value of socially assistive robots in intelligent homes and (2) the KSERA project field trials in Schwechat (Vienna) and Tel Aviv (Israel) that tested an integrated smart-home/robot system with real end users (N=16) in three real-world scenarios. Overall, results show that socially assistive robots positively affect user experience and motivation compared to standard smart environment interfaces such as touch screens. However, people still tend to prefer conventional interfaces for receiving information.
We would like to thank all participants of the conducted studies for their time and dedication. T... more We would like to thank all participants of the conducted studies for their time and dedication. The study "PhysicAAL" was funded by the Austrian ministry for transport, innovation and technology within the "Benefit" programme.
Within the FP7 project KSERA a biped robot was used within two main user trials as an embodied ag... more Within the FP7 project KSERA a biped robot was used within two main user trials as an embodied agent to support older people during daily life. This paper describes parts of the conducted trials involving 10 users in 32 test sessions to generate results regarding the technical validity and acceptance of the approach by evaluating approx. 20 hours of human robot interaction. Acceptance and technical issues were discovered and are described in the results section giving advice how to improve the acceptance in future prototypes and general limitations of the approach are discussed.
Auf Grund von technischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Hürden besteht ein starkes Altersgefälle in ... more Auf Grund von technischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Hürden besteht ein starkes Altersgefälle in Bezug auf die Nutzung von internet-basierten Diensten. Im Rahmen des geförderten Projektes "myTablet" wurde gemeinsam mit einer Gruppe von SeniorInnen evaluiert, in wiefern aktuelle Tablet PCs geeignet sind, diese Hürden zu minimieren. Zu diesem Zweck wurden sowohl eine Studie mit elf SeniorInnen zur generellen Benutzbarkeit solcher Geräte als auch vier einmonatige Feldtests durchgeführt, in denen ältere Personen ein Tablet nach einer Einschulung für einen längeren Zeitraum selbstständig verwenden konnten. Die Ergebnisse der Studien zeigen eine hohe Zufriedenheit und Akzeptanz der Nutzergruppe und legen darum einen stärkeren Fokus auf die Entwicklung von Tablet Applikationen speziell für die Zielgruppe der SeniorInnen nahe, sowie Initiativen um dem erhöhten Informationsbedarf der Zielgruppe in dieser Hinsicht gerecht zu werden.
In this paper we describe the use of accelerometers in a system aiming to detect Activities of Da... more In this paper we describe the use of accelerometers in a system aiming to detect Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) of elderly people in home environments. Our aim is to enable senior citizens to remain in their familiar home environments as long as possible by increasing their feeling for safety and autonomy in a minimally invasive way. Therefore we developed a ZigBee-based smart system which uses distributed accelerometers as main sensory component and does not need the resident to wear any artifact. In this way certain activity patterns could be recognized respecting the users’ privacy. We gathered certain ADLs manually from the raw data and validated them in different ways. In this manner 151 out of 155 ADLs could be verified. In this paper an overview of the system together with the findings of the real life tests are presented.
Internet usage in Austria varies between age groups in a way that only about 30% of older users a... more Internet usage in Austria varies between age groups in a way that only about 30% of older users above 60 have access to Internet services compared to nearly 100% in the age group between 14 and 30. This digital divide exists because of technical, social and economical ...
ABSTRACT The ageing population phenomenon is pushing the design of innovative solutions to provid... more ABSTRACT The ageing population phenomenon is pushing the design of innovative solutions to provide assistance to the elderly. In this context a socially–assistive robot can act as a proactive interface in a smart-home environment, providing multimodal communication channels and generating positive feelings in users. The present paper reports results of a short term and a long term evaluation of a small socially assistive humanoid robot in a smart home environment. Eight elderly people tested an integrated smart–home robot system in five real–world scenarios. Six of the participants experienced the system in two sessions over a two week period; the other two participants had a prolonged experience of eight sessions over a three month period. Results showed that the small humanoid robot was trusted by the participants. A cross–cultural comparison showed that results were not due to the cultural background of the participants. The long term evaluation showed that the participants might engage in an emotional relationship with the robot, but that perceived enjoyment might decrease over time.
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Papers by Franz Werner