report

Introduction

Robotic Care Companions is an embodiment of artificial intelligence technology and robotics that solely focuses on research and development of the industrial application for cognitive intelligence. Based on technology such as multi-language natural language processing, deep semantic interaction, speech recognition, and machine learning, the core of this technology have become more common these days. Robotic care companion is the type of robots specifically designed and created to provide real or perceivable companions for human beings especially elderlies as the statistics has projected a decline in employment related to nursing in the future. At the early developmental stages, these robots were targeted for as aforementioned – elderly and single children. Thanks to the advancement of artificial technology, machine learning, and deep learning, these robots are now capable of doing almost every household works. These household works include cooking, cleaning, nursing, entertaining and so much more.

Despite large amounts of media attention, the field of robotics in care is, in fact, nascent. As yet there has not been a strategic approach that has sought to consider the roll-out of robots in care services. 

History

The word ‘robot’ and how it is define has been confusing from the very start. The word first introduce in 1921 in Karel Capek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots. However the definition was all cleared up until 1960s, a company built something that started meeting those guidelines. The company called SRI International in Silicon Valley developed Shakey, the first truly mobile and perceptive robot. Then, in the mid-1980s Honda started up a humanoid robotics program. They have developed P3 which is capable of walking flawlessly, as well as other humanoid action such as waving and shake hands. Since then, the concept of companion robots has started to be developed gradually due to the high demand for domestic robots from the consumer. The development of industrial robots led to the development of this technology which was started as a part of the research.

Technical information

Recent developments in open source hardware and software platforms have enabled rapid development of previously expensive and sophisticated system within a lower budget and flatter learning curves for developers. Using these platform, a Java-based 3D robotic simulation system is designed and developed, with graph database. Through the mix of the open source hardware and software system created a flexible and expandable platform for further developments in the future and it is accessible for every developer, both in the software and hardware areas, in particular in combination with graph database for artificial intelligence, as well as more sophisticated hardware, such as legged or humanoid robots.

Impact to the society

Studies has shown that social robot that trained and program to interact and communicate with us human beings could solve one of the biggest concern in the near future. This suggest that robotic care companion has a high chance of addressing arising issues of care and social interaction. Large amount of robotics researchers believed that robotic technology could help reduce loneliness, and also help elderlies patients to gain more independence in their life. There are government from different countries that support the domestic use of robotic technology such as Japan however the communities in japan suggested otherwise due to unbalance care benefits against the ethical cost. Emerging technologies are technologies advancement that are currently in the process of development and will be disruptive to current business and social environment once completed. In another word emerging technologies are revolutionary if successfully implemented in our society. Robotic care companions would falls into this category as they are interpreted as a replacement for jobs such as child care and nursing for elderlies

Reference

Nast, C. (2019). Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Robots. [online] Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/wired-guide-to-robots/ [Accessed 2 Sep. 2019].

Iopscience.iop.org. (2019). [online] Available at: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/114/1/012142/pdf [Accessed 2 Sep. 2019].

Tutorialspoint.com. (2019). Artificial Intelligence – Robotics – Tutorialspoint. Available at: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/artificial_intelligence/artificial_intelligence_robotics.htm [Accessed 2 Sep. 2019].

The Conversation. (2019). Robot carers could help lonely seniors — they’re cheering humans up already. [online] Available at: https://theconversation.com/robot-carers-could-help-lonely-seniors-theyre-cheering-humans-up-already-106181 [Accessed 2 Sep. 2019].