With a decreasing workforce of care professionals and to support an active and positive working life of informal carers, there is a need for assistive technologies at home. The GUARDIAN project introduces a social companion, which aims to be of direct benefit for three groups of end-users. The Guardian robot will be more widely deployable and a lot more advanced than existing models. For example, it contains sensors that can create an accurate image of the house like a radar. In this way the informal carer knows from a distance where his family member has fallen, and will be able to direct the robot to the location and establish a speech-image connection via the robot. The GUARDIAN project follows from the start a unique iterative design, research and development methodology with 3 streams, focusing on:
1. Co-creation & Personalization;
2. Ethical and value-sensitive design;
3. Business Modeling & Cost-effectiveness.
Objectives:
The aim of the Guardian project is to develop a care robot that supports seniors and caregivers. A major challenge is that informal caregivers find it increasingly difficult to continue their work in addition to the care tasks they already have. And when you also consider the increasing shortages in healthcare, the burden can become even higher. With Guardian, we therefore want to develop a robot companion with which the district nurse and informal caregiver can monitor his client, family or neighbor remotely. We focus on healthcare professionals and informal carers who care for older people who live at home.
Expected results and impact:
GUARDIAN positions the social robot primarily as a companion of the professional nurses, enabling a new B2B business model targeting home care organizations and nursing homes. The GUARDIAN methodology with 3 streams will include cost-effectiveness studies showing the potential time and cost reductions in long-term care whenever a robot companion is included in the care processes. These studies are essential to ensure structural financing via municipalities, health insurers and/or national governments. Moreover, an explicit focus on personalization and the ethics of design are essential for the acceptability and trust of users, thereby fostering the business and societal value of the system.
Partners
Partners involved in a project
- Project name: GUARDIAN
- Website: www.guardian-aal.eu
- Coordinator: Vilans
- Duration: 36 months
- Starting date:
- Total budget: € 1.642.969
- Public contribution: € 1.171.197
Contact:
Dr. Henk Herman Nap
E: h.nap@vilans.nl
T: +31 (0) 6 2281 0766
Ir. Janna Alberts
E: j.alberts@connectedcare.nl
T: +31 (0) 6 4702 4217
