In the future, robots are going to care for our elders. It is nice to know that a bunch of companies are working on these ideas. IBM’s Watson-Powered Eldercare Robot, IBM MERA, is done in collaboration with Rice University. The robot is going to use motion & falling, audio and olfactory sensors to collect data and help IBM find ways to improve healthcare for old people.
“Our new research on ’embodied cognition,’ which can combine real-time data generated by sensors with cognitive computing, will explore how to provide clinicians and caregivers with insights that could help them make better care decisions for their patients,”
explains Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President, IBM Research. The robot can calculate vital signs by recording video of a person’s face. It interacts using IBM Watson Speech to Text and natural language APIs.