Although advances in robotics over the past few years have made it possible to build a robot that successfully provides commercial services, it is not easy to be successful. From the products of companies such as Savilek, we learned that the development of robotics technology has enabled automation platforms to freely accomplish many practical tasks in a semi-structured environment, and its effectiveness and high efficiency have been enough to become a compelling business case.
Luvozo, a startup founded in Maryland College Park in 2013, brings automated robots to a semi-structured environment and creates endless possibilities: to build experienced care equipment for the elderly. They are in the process of inventing a machine janitor called SAM, which can provide households with frequent rounds of ward rounds and non-pharmacy care services through automatic navigation, remote monitoring and wrestling risk detection systems.
The main function of SAM is reflected in the automatic monitoring platform. A robot can cover an entire floor of an elderly community, which is 25 households and two or three assistants. In many nursing homes, employees spend a lot of time watching the households, about once per hour (or more often if they are high-risk households). SAM took over the task of checking room by room using the automatic navigation function. When they arrive in the room, employees can confirm everything by remote video conferencing mode. In the event of any problems, remote employees can contact local employees and come to the door in person.
There are many advantages to using remote monitoring robots in this situation, and they do not replace human work: they only give the care and attention that households need. The robot moves freely in each room, which means that the remote employees can communicate with the residents through the movement of the robot. Local employees do not need frequent rounds of inspections now, which frees them from their responsibilities. Despite the intermediary of robotics, the interaction between the residents themselves and the outside world has increased. In a word, the entanglement of local employees and the rounds of house inspections has become less, they can communicate more with the residents, and their own freedom of movement has not decreased.
Some people may question whether residents accept remote check-ups that are opposite to human check-ups, but know that remote workers can obtain specific information for each household that they talk to, so each exchange is “private customâ€. David Pietrocola told us that in the trial, tenants were quite satisfied with the situation: “In almost all cases, no one showed a boycott. From the householder’s point of view, this is a more personalized experience. In the trial We put SAM on the corridor, and at the end of the experiment, when people see SAM through the corridor, they say hello to it: “Hi!SAM!†Even if it doesn’t respond, it changes the system to a certain extent. Part of the community has become part of the fact that robots are used as objects for tablets and other things that add vitality to life. We don't need SAM to replicate the real-life function, because it's more like giving tenants more A channel of care.
Luvozo believes that SAM (including the various services provided by SAM) only costs one third of the cost of hiring a certified nursing assistant. This can save a lot of money, but it is just as important to figure out what will happen in this area in the future. The ageing trend of the population continues to intensify, and many types of jobs are now facing a crisis of lack of skilled workers: In the next 15 years, the total amount of labor to provide care will be three times that of today. SAM is a power multiplier that allows the same number of workers to provide consumers with a better care experience. In addition, SAM allows people who are already in the nursing industry to work at their own pace or work longer in their own homes. At the same time, SAM also allows them to freely change their place of work: as long as they have a good network connection and the ability to provide services to households around the world, remote workers can live in any place they want to live.
With such a clear value proposition, we asked Pietrocola and Michael Austin, chief strategy officer of Luvozo, why there are not many companies in this field. "In the past few years, navigation technology has achieved considerable growth," explains Pietrocola. "The fact is that ROS has rapidly matured, which is why such technology can be well configured. No one can combine the right product with the right business model." Austin added: "The industry has already wanted to build it. Home robots, but the difference between each family is very big. So our system perspective must be built on the specific environment, with better compatibility to reduce the difficulty of navigation."
With the manufacture of robots that automate navigation in the crowd, SAM has its own security features. A robot weighs about 41 kilograms (90 pounds) and has a fixed suspension to support the low-gravity center to make it strong. In addition, there is a four-zone bumper system (which theoretically is never used before) that provides backup support for IR sensors around the chassis. The main navigation sensor is a new 10-meter-long SICK lidar (with a one-third degree angle resolution), Luvozo put it in a robotic system for testing, there is also one for other navigation data and SAM's wrestling assessment system's RGB-D sensor. The last part of the SAM is the interaction between humans and robots: a 19-inch screen, a webcam, a microphone array, and several mic-driven microphones (when you need to spend a whole day and those listening are not particularly good When people communicate, this stuff is very important.)
In addition to the automatic navigation function, SAM has an important function that distinguishes it from a purely remote-controlled robot, Luvozo's AFAS, or its automatic wrestling evaluation system. Using the RGB-D sensor (now called Kinect 2), SAM can continuously sweep the floor in an attempt to find out if someone is wrestling: the space for clutter and planning chaos make it easy for people to stumble. This is a more serious problem than it sounds, because the harm caused by wrestling is sometimes very serious, and many wrestlings can be avoided. AFAS can measure, alert employees and provide specific advice on the resolution of problems. In fact, this feature is the reason why many nursing homes are interested in using SAM.
Last fall, Luvozo used a SAM test in the elderly community in Washington. "After the test," Pietrocola told us, "They came back and said, 'We want to use it all the time.'" This is the best result of the experiment that I can imagine. Luvozo is now working hard to close the investment round and hopes to end the product development period so that they can hand over the SAM to the initial paying customer by the end of the year.
In the future, SAM will have more functions to expand in management care settings. Luvozo is considering giving SAM more autonomy, such as conversational artificial intelligence, but they are also exploring the possibility of creating home-portable devices. SAM can be used as a more traditional two-way solution for real-time video calls between residents and family members. Remote control device. Nevertheless, in the short term Luvozo will still focus on addressing the needs of their immediate customers, namely: the management of the retirement community, staffing, and the families they care about.
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