Research seminar "Robotic Help for Supporting Older People to Stay Longer Independent at Home"

Abstract:

A fall of older people is the main reason to make the move into professional care necessary. Hence, a robot that could help to reduce risks of falling will enable older adults to stay longer independent at home. We developed a robot that provides fall prevention and fall detection. Measure of fall prevention are to pick up anything from the floor, report narrow passages, and help carry objects in the home. Fall detection is executed regularly to make sure that people are detected as soon as possible. First studies indicate that such help is welcome by target users. The development of the robot for user trials at home is presented.

Biography:

Markus Vincze received his diploma in mechanical engineering from Technical University Wien (TUW) in 1988 and a M.Sc. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA, 1990. He finished his PhD at TUW in 1993, with a grant from the Austrian Academy of Sciences he worked at HelpMate Robotics Inc. and at the Vision Laboratory of Gregory Hager at Yale University. In 2004, he obtained his habilitation in robotics. Presently he leads a group of researchers in the “Vision for Robotics” laboratory at TUW. With Gregory Hager he edited a book on Robust Vision for IEEE and is (co-)author of over 250 papers. Markus’ special interests are computer vision techniques for robotics solutions situated in real-world environments and especially homes.