ICRA2018 Workshop: Elderly Care Robotics – Technology and Ethics

The number of elderly people living at home is increasing, and this trend is expected to continue since the proportion of elderly people in the world is increasing. Thus, there is a need for technology that can support the elderly in independent living and make caregivers work effectively. The challenge then would be how to provide technology that can handle the complex and different environments found in homes. Further, technology can easily be seen as a threat to privacy and lack of interpersonal contact. Thus, it is important to address how robots are going to look like and behave as well as what they are used for in the home of elderly. This workshop will be organized for sharing knowledge about technological opportunities and challenges regarding robots for elderly as well as ethical considerations to be addressed. 

The workshop would target to contain sessions/talks on:
1.    Sensing technology and sensor data analysis (technology for observing the condition of elderly, including techniques for evaluating their current – and potentially predict their future – state)
2.    Robot companions (mobile robots targeting elderly care)
3.    Applications (examples of robotics supporting elderly in living independently)
4.    Ethics (what are the most relevant issues and how should they be addressed) 
5.    Concluding with a discussion session (potentially organized as a panel debate)

We will invite some selected invited speakers (we would have funding for partly covering their cost) in addition to have an open call for presentation (oral and posters) on the topics listed above. We will target to cover as broad geographical distribution of speakers as possible from countries were relevant research have been undertaken (including Japan, Europe, US in addition to Australia) to provide a world-wide arena for sharing ideas and understanding on both technology and ethics related to robots for elderly care. 

Official workshop web page

Organizers:

Jim Torresen, University of Oslo, Norway

Ryo Kurazume, Kyushu University, Japan

Edson Prestes, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
 

Published Sep. 16, 2017 5:53 AM - Last modified Jan. 15, 2018 9:42 PM