Nonna Lea and a robot called Mr. RobinDigitalAgendaEU

Europe's ageing population leaves an increasing number of people in the same situation -- with a desire to remain in their homes, despite being unable to live alone any longer. One solution to overcome this discordance between people's personal wishes and their indisputable need for care is a robotics system partly funded by the EU and developed through an joint initiative by Swedish and Italian researchers entitled GiraffPlus.

A non-autonomous telepresence robot -- a "Skype on wheels", according to project coordinator Amy Loutfi -- is the focal point of the the system, and helps elderly people around their homes, as well as keeping them connected to their relatives, friends and to healthcare professionals. The person's health and activities are monitored by a series of sensors and pressure pads placed around the home, as well as wearable tech, the results of which are then fed back to a central system.

Almost all of the components needed to construct the robots are already commercially available, meaning that it isn't itself terribly difficult to put together. What is distinct is the service it provides. "The system itself and the technology should be generic enough that it works, depending on what your needs are," explains Loutfi, but during installation they will discuss with the person what their worries are to find out what alarms and alerts might be most relevant.

"Some people, for example, are concerned that they get up too often during the night. Other people are concerned that maybe that they don't go out of the house enough. And depending on their needs, we deploy the right sensors that they need so we can monitor these types of activities."

The sensors that are installed can measure everything from a person's blood pressure to detecting falls, meaning that specific events or unusual results can trigger an alert to family members or other caregivers. Giraff isn't designed to be designed to be a replacement to human care, but instead it complements it and allows elderly people to prolong the length of time they are able to live independently.

In total the system has been installed in six homes throughout Europe -- two in Spain, two in Italy and two in Sweden. One recipient of the system is a 94-year-old grandmother from Italy, who calls her household robot "Mr Robin", frequently writes about it on her blog and credits for her feeling "more relaxed about the years ahead". By the end of this year, it's estimated that the full GiraffPlus system will be in a total of 15 homes and it will enter into commercial production in 2015.

"The main question that we haven't been able to solve yet and we're still looking at is of course, who is going to be the main customer? Is it going to be the elderly themselves, or will it be the healthcare providers?" If it's the healthcare providers, says Loufti, then they will have to start planning deployment on a country by country basis. "It needs a bit of work," she admits, "not from a technical point of view, but in really understanding the business models."

The system is being funded with the help of the European Commission as part of its Digital Agenda Strategy and has so far received €3m. Through EU participation in GiraffPlus, the company, together with others working on ambient assisted living projects, is beginning to understand the challenges of the business side of the market, says Loufti.

"What is perhaps unique for our project is that we see how the technology interacts with the user in the home in a very close way, which is special, because the system is in itself is very complex," she adds. It will be interesting to watch how this technology progresses as Giraff Technologies predicts that the EU market for robots and devices assisting the elderly will be worth €13 billion by 2016.


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