Lending a robotic hand

A combination of robotics and healthcare is the focus of several innovative Auckland research projects. Computing lecturer Dr Chandimal Jayawardena tells us more about the work and his role in it. Healthcare robots and robotic diagnostic chairs may sound futuristic but for Unitec computing lecturer Chandimal Jayawardena they are his daily work. Chandimals current research project involves creating a robotic diagnostic chair that can assess cardiovascular risk. The project is funded by the Unitec Research Committee, and involves a crossdepartmental team of Unitec co-researchers. Chandimal is also a long-standing member of the University of Auckland-based HealthBots project, which has designed and implemented robotic helpers for the elderly and is in its third round of testing at Selwyn Village in Auckland. It was the combination of robotics and health informatics that particularly interested Chandimal and he plans to build on that with the creation of the diagnostic chair. He says it will be used in a number of different ways, including assessing the cardiovascular risk of patients living in remote areas by allowing their results to be sent directly to doctors and specialists in larger centres. With $25,000 in initial funding, he plans to produce a prototype by the end of the year and has already finished the software design and preliminary testing. Once operational, the chair will take and record measurements including body weight, bio impedance (which helps determine the ratio of body fat), blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation, as well as ECG measurement. If you have these measurements then it is possible to diagnose cardio vascular risk. A large part of the project involves the integration of the various healthcare information systems used by doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies in New Zealand. Health Informatics is an emerging area. In New Zealand there are lots of heterogeneous healthcare systems that are not interconnected but have the standards to do this. My plan is to use those standards in this chair, so that it can easily integrate with any of these systems. In most robotics projects, the focus is on the technical side but I want to create an information system as well as a robotic product. HealthBots project With his specialist research interests in robotics, software architecture, and software integration , Chandimal became involved in the HealthBots robotic project in

2009 as a research fellow with the University of Auckland. Since joining Unitec in 2011, he has continued his involvement in the project, which is led by Associate Professor Bruce MacDonald of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Auckland, through a sub-contract with UniServices. The Korean Governments Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, together with the Yujin Robot company, ED Corporation and Isan Solutions are also partners in the HealthBots project. Initially Chandimals role in the HealthBots project was to design the software architecture and lead the technical team, while other members of the 22-strong team worked on their specialist areas of health psychology, gerontology, signal processing, and health informatics. The first robot trial was held in 2009, initially to test the feasibility of using robots with the elderly, and two further trials have followed, the latest involving 30 robots placed in independent living apartments, communal areas and hospital public areas.

Chandimal says the robots perform a range of helpful functions for the elderly, including companionship, entertainment, communication and reminding, but there were a number of unique challenges in creating a suitable product.We needed to create something that was very different from any other software product and there were a number of considerations. One is that the elderly may not be as familiar with computers, and another is that they may have physical limitations due to old age, such as arthritis, limited vision or loss of hearing. These are serious considerations in product design and the reason we tested them in Selwyn Village several times. Chandimal says user trials are one of the unique strengths of the HealthBots project, as internationally researchers face difficulties in recruiting suitable participants, gaining ethical approval for their work, and managing participant involvement during the often extended timeframes of such projects. HealthBots is one of the biggest robotics projects in the world. Most robotics projects are limited to the lab and dont involve real participants. Having Selwyn as a partner is very helpful. World-leading robots The HealthBots robots also have an advantage over robots in other international projects because of the large number of functions they can perform. In most cases they are limited to very few functions, for example there might be medicationreminding robots or entertainment robots. But with this robot, the decision was made to include a large number of features as many features as possible so therefore it can do vital-signs measurement, entertainment, calling/Skype, medication reminding, falls detection, internet browsing, and brain fitness games a lot of things. These robots do not perform physical tasks but they can help look after the person. They can detect falls and call the caregiver or family, they can remind people. And it is feasible that these robots will be in peoples homes in the future. The computers used at Selwyn Village have a touch screen for residents to interact with, wheels to navigate, and some senses, but they do not look or move like humans. Chandimal says that the interface used is very intuitive, so it is relatively easy for residents to learn to use

them. Supporting that ease of use and the range of functions is complex software architecture designed by Chandimal to allow the range of applications to work harmoniously together. Initially, in a project like this, there are only ideas, so in the software development process we need to gather the requirements what the software needs to be able to do and design an architecture to support this. Chandimal continues as a member of the HealthBots team, doing collaborative research. The current phase of the HealthBots project ends in mid 2012 and the group is applying for funding to extend the project.

Contact: Dr Chandimal Jayawardena Lecturer Department of Computing Faculty of Creative Industries and Business