A Study on the Deployment of a Service Robot in an Elderly Care Center

In this article, we address the implementation and deployment of a service robot platform for interaction with the elderly in the context of a collaborative European initiative. Specifically, we overview the development of the robot system architecture and components, focusing on the graceful integration of a set of interoperable intelligent services towards advanced human-robot interaction. The service robot targets older people with light physical or psychological issues, delivering several different functionalities, and putting itself at their service. We describe the initial validation tests in a semi-controlled scenario, as well as the deployment of the robotic platform during a week-long pilot in an end user environment. The main challenges and the outcome of the experimental tests with the mobile robot platform are discussed, and results show generally positive reactions from the care center residents, which have provided their valuable feedback on the usability, appearance, interaction and satisfaction of the robot, yielding important lessons that were learned while performing the pilot.