Quality of Life Technology Robots (QoLTbots): Towards Providing Assistance in the Home and Community for People with Disabilities and Older Adults

There is increasing progress towards robotic devices that will provide beneficial assistance to people with disabilities and older adults in the home. In recent years, there has been a break from the traditional robotics approach of creating autonomous robotic systems and tele-operated robots, towards symbiotic robotic systems that work in partnership with and incorporate the strengths and capabilities of humans and robots working collaboratively, and in many cases intimately together. This has resulted in a new class of assistive robots termed Quality of Life Technology Robots or QoLTbots. This paper describes work on two QoLTbots with different structures, yet they share many core technologies. The ultimate goal of these QoLTbots is to create a framework and actual demonstration units (i.e., testbeds) to demonstrate the ability to assist people with disabilities and older adults in meaningful ways, and to study their acceptance of QoLTbots.