A Pearl for the Elderly
From: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 04/04/2004
By: Gary Rotstein

A research team from Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, the
University of Michigan, and Stanford University continue to test the
elder-care robot Pearl at the retirement community Longwood at Oakmont in
Pittsburgh. Pearl is one facet of the Personal Robotic Assistants for the
Elderly project, which also includes the high-tech walker IMP, and a handheld
device designed to remind people of things they need to do. While Pearl can
guide herself through an area at a pace equivalent to a slow walk for humans
and verbalize scripted reminders such as it is time for a person to take
their medicine, the four-foot-high robot will not hear, talk, recall, and
respond the way its inventors want it to for at least another decade. The
researchers want Pearl to sense that something is wrong if a person has not
visited the bathroom in some time, stays in the bathroom too long, or does
not move from a chair; seek an explanation and summon help if it receives no
answer; as well as pick up and move things for people. "From a robotic
domain, topics such as living with a person, sharing the same space,
interacting with a person, are the cutting edge in robotics," says professor
Sebastian Thrun, who runs the artificial intelligence lab at Stanford. The
next-generation walker makes use of sonar detectors, a laser range finder,
and mapping software to determine where a person wants to go (even if the
person gripping it does not), and the researchers also envision IMP moving
itself out of the way after it has been used and returning when the person
summons it. The handheld piece of artificial intelligence would give Pearl
and IMP the ability to know when a user has completed essential tasks or when
to offer reminders. 

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/04095/295927.stm