#metralabs

"SCITOS A5 is a multifunctional mobile service robot. Developed by MetraLabs for interaction with humans and guiding to articles and exhibits. Additionally, SCITOS A5 has a 360° camera. The panorama view ensures a permanent surveillance of the environment. The robot drives autonomously towards people. It communicates using speech synthesis, head movements and a touch display. It avoids obstacles and is programmed to be familiar with the given building’s environment. There is no need for additional sensors or marks. SCITOS A5 gets to know his environment by doing." – Handling autonomous mobile robot SCITOS A5.

"The Serroga project was the direct evolution of CompanionAble. The robot, Max, provided a new version of Hector, sharing the same base functionalities (i.e., a mobile base with a touch screen). However, this new platform was enhanced by means of an additional RGB-D camera. In addition, in contrast with the aforementioned projects, Serroga augmented experiments in lab-houses with trials in private homes. As in CompanionAble, also in this project the robot acted mainly as a reminder system and as a centralised interface for various communication and measurement systems." – Robots for Elderly Care in the Home: A Landscape Analysis and Co-Design Toolkit, by Gianluca Bardaro, Alessio Antonini, Enrico Motta.

"The long-term research project Zuse-Guide [Lotsenroboter im Zusebau] aims at developing two autonomous interactive service robots called “Konrad” and “Suse” which are to autonomously guide and to tour visitors within the new Konrad Zuse building of the Ilmenau University of Technology, hosting the School of Computer Science and Automation on 4 floors since June 2011. The service robots are supposed to provide an intuitive interaction to potential users. Service tasks considered in this project are to autonomously navigate in the building and guide the visitors, to provide information about the different labs and to tour visitors around in the building, giving them a deeper insight into the research topics and exhibits of the institutes and labs. During their operation, the robots wait next to the main entrance doors at the ground floor and offer their service when a potential user approaches. The user can select the different functions using a touch screen-based graphical dialog system which is commented by a speech synthesis system to provide a natural and intuitive user experience. The robots also offer to guide the visitor to the destination of his/her choice and inform about news for the different institutes and labs. When the robots have finished guiding the user around, they return to their waiting position to welcome the next visitor." – Interactive Mobile Robots Guiding Visitors in a University Building.

"ROREAS aims to develop a robotic rehabilitation assistant for walking and orientation exercising in self training during clinical stroke follow-up care. The robotic rehab assistant accompanies inpatients during walking exercises, practicing both mobility and spatial orientation skills. It shall also address patients’ insecurity and anxiety (“Am I able to do that”, “Will I find my way back?”) which are possible reasons for failing self training. The assistant also monitors the exercises and stores clinical records for accounting and clearing with insurance funds, thus combining improved training capabilities for patients and organizational efficiency for the care or treatment facility. The project requires consistent integration of robust autonomous navigation in public environments, advanced reliable human-machine-interaction and intuitive assistive functions allowing customized individual exercise plans." – ROREAS - Interaktiver RObotischer REha-ASsistent für das Lauf- und Orientierungstraining von Patienten nach Schlaganfällen.

RINGO (2015) by MetraLabs, Thuringia, Germany. Developed for the ROREAS project, RINGO is a SCITOS A5 with an additional omnidirectional camera rig on top of its head. "The robot is designed so that it can be operated in a sitting or standing position. The person tracking system also estimates the patient's pose (upright or seated) and selects an ergonomic approach position if interaction is expected. Special attention was paid to social navigation in public environments. Depending on the situation, RINGO has to avoid oncoming traffic and blockage situations in narrow hospital corridors."

"Three demonstrators for robot-based "communication assistance", "movement motivation" and "remembrance function", various of the requirements for a "health robot" are to be implemented in a practical way that is suitable for everyday life. The demonstrators should not only be developed with the end users, but also used in their immediate environment in the long term. The end users are mainly elderly people in need of support, their relatives and those working in outpatient and inpatient care. As part of this deployment, the determining factors for the acceptance of such robot-assisted health care are to be investigated and improved." – Objectives and classification of the research group SERROGA.

"As a vision of the SYMPARTNER project, we see a robot companion, that is living together with its user in a long-term interaction situation. As we expect the evolution of an emotional binding of the user to her robot over time, which is reinforced by the ability of the system to adapt to the user’s needs and preferences, adaptation and learning techniques and new intuitive modalities for getting an immediate user feedback (e.g. via haptic feedback or recognition of the user’s facial expression) are required to quickly personalize the interaction behavior of the robot to its current user." – Horst-Michael Gross et al, Living with a Mobile Companion Robot in your Own Apartment.