An automated helping hand for seniors

The elderly population of Korea is growing fast, and with one of the smallest birth rates in the world, Korea isn’t producing new youngsters to care for them. The engineer’s solution? Robots.

And one possible model for a future Korean “silver robot” caretaker is the “Carebot,” being developed by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute. The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, about a five-minute drive from Stuttgart in southwest Germany, developed the Carebot. The robot stands about 150 cm (4 feet, 9 inches) tall and is shaped like a cylinder with one arm. It doesn’t exactly look human ― it moves around on wheels and its two “fingers” are like forceps. However, when told, “Carebot, go get some orange juice from the refrigerator” the contraption moves to the refrigerator, opens the door, and pulls out the orange juice. For seniors who find it difficult to speak, Carebot can be activated using a remote with a nine-inch screen, or with the touch screen on Carebot’s body.

Carebot can also do more advanced work, functioning as a moving cane, helping seniors in and out of bed, and calling for help in an emergency. It can also be used as a television and phone. The institute conducted tests on senior citizens and received favorable results. The European Union’s sixth “Euro Framework” technology development program marks EU investments of over 140 million euros ($187 million) over the past five years in “silver technology,” including robots. Globally, industrial robots make up the bulk of the robot industry. Recently, some robots that can be used for personal service, such as vacuum cleaner robots and home security robots, have gone on the market. Robots with extremely advanced functions, such as kitchen-assisting skills, are still in development stages in the United States and may be available after 2010. Although the market is now small, the International Robot Federation forecasts that personal assistance robots will make up 40 percent of the entire robot market by 2016, constituting a market of $200 billion. Currently, they only take up about 10 percent of the market.

The Holmheltz Robot-Machinery Research Institute, about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) southwest of Munich, creates robots with hands and arms very similar to the limbs of human beings. The robot arms are installed on a box with a computer inside. Each hand has four fingers and each finger has three segments, like a human finger. When a researcher throws a tennis ball from a distance of five meters (5.5 yards), the robot arm moves smoothly and catches the ball. The speed of the ball is not as fast as one thrown by a baseball pitcher, but still the technology is quite advanced, the researcher said. The artificial hand can even open a bottle and pour a drink. Carsten Prose, a researcher, said that the movement of the arm is precise. “We didn’t feel the need to make legs since it can operate very well as it is,” he said. At a lab on the first floor, two robot arms have been attached to a a box that resembles a human torso. This robot can bend at the waist like a human. Gerdt Hirschinger, a professor at Munich University and the head of the robot research institute, said the robot can also do odd jobs, such as picking up objects. “The robot can be used not only for services, but industrial purposes as well,” he said. In these robots it’s easy to see a solution to Korea’s population problem, but it’ll have to come quickly ― Koreans aged 65 and over were 9.5 percent of the population as of July 1, but that will grow to 20.8 percent by 2026, according to the National Statistical Office. And 18.6 percent of Korean senior citizens live in rural regions, many of which are depopulated, making portable, reliable care even more imperative. by Park Bang-ju