R&D Issues in the Development of Human-friendly Welfare Robot Systems
Zeung nam Bien · 2000
Future society must be utopia in which every constituent can share equal welfare. In particular, it should be a society where the elderly and the physically handicapped can lead their lives happily along with the normal. In order to realize such a welfare-driven society, it is essential to build an infrastructure with a variety of facilities based on advanced technology or devices and systems that are human friendly. To comply with the needs of human beings to lead more convenient and safe lives, human-friendly and effective man-machine interaction systems are desired for the human being and robots to coexist and collaborate. Of various areas of welfare robot systems, the following four issues will be discussed in this paper: (1) intelligent residential space system for the weakelderly /handicapped, (2) state-of-the-art medical robot system, (3) entertainment/educational robot system including soccer robots, and (4) disaster control and rescue robot.