About this Research Topic
Undoubtedly, there is a growing interest in the development and commercialization of robotic systems that are able to provide support at healthcare facilities and home environments. At healthcare facilities, robots improve the diagnosis and treatment of many different diseases (mental and physical) and they help professional staff be more efficient, with more time for patients. At home, they assist to prevent accidents, they have the potential to perform different household tasks, keep the users active with cognitive and physical activities, and raise alarms if needed.
One major challenge is the robustness and reliability of these robot systems, which involve complex technologies and software. Progress in fundamental problems such as object detection and recognition, navigation, grasping, etc. is achieved every year, but practical and robust solutions are yet to be found. Human-robot interaction is also of utmost importance for the acceptance of such robots. All these topics are of course interconnected, since advances in one direction may reveal and help address other kinds of issues.
In this Research Topic, we aim at compiling a general overview of ongoing work in these areas, specifically targeted to solve open problems for assistive and service robots in health and home applications. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
- Assistive and service robotics for health and home applications: requirements and
design
- Hardware and software architectures
- Robot perception: object detection and mapping, 3D perception for manipulation
- Robot navigation: mapping, localization, planning, safety, coping with 3D environments and small spaces.
- Robot manipulation, mobile manipulation
- Intuitive human-robot interaction, including targeting older adults
- Data gathering and processing, including privacy issues
- Activity recognition and monitoring, approaches to keep users active
- Behaviour orchestrations, robustness, and reliability of health and home robots
- Case-studies
We welcome the submission of original research papers, reviews, mini-reviews, case-reports, and perspectives.
One major challenge is the robustness and reliability of these robot systems, which involve complex technologies and software. Progress in fundamental problems such as object detection and recognition, navigation, grasping, etc. is achieved every year, but practical and robust solutions are yet to be found. Human-robot interaction is also of utmost importance for the acceptance of such robots. All these topics are of course interconnected, since advances in one direction may reveal and help address other kinds of issues.
In this Research Topic, we aim at compiling a general overview of ongoing work in these areas, specifically targeted to solve open problems for assistive and service robots in health and home applications. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
- Assistive and service robotics for health and home applications: requirements and
design
- Hardware and software architectures
- Robot perception: object detection and mapping, 3D perception for manipulation
- Robot navigation: mapping, localization, planning, safety, coping with 3D environments and small spaces.
- Robot manipulation, mobile manipulation
- Intuitive human-robot interaction, including targeting older adults
- Data gathering and processing, including privacy issues
- Activity recognition and monitoring, approaches to keep users active
- Behaviour orchestrations, robustness, and reliability of health and home robots
- Case-studies
We welcome the submission of original research papers, reviews, mini-reviews, case-reports, and perspectives.
Keywords: assistive robots, domestic robots, health applications, perception, home navigation, grasping, HRI, system behaviour and evaluation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
