Attendant Robot for Elderly Service

Using Sensor Network System

Tetsuya Kaneko
Faculty of System Design
Tokyo Metropolitan University
Tokyo, Japan
kaneko-tetsuya@sd.tmu.ac.jp
Kouhei Tanaka
Faculty of System Design
Tokyo Metropolitan University
Tokyo, Japan
tanaka-kouhei@sd.tmu.ac.jp
Ho Yihsin
Faculty of System Design
Tokyo Metropolitan University
Tokyo, Japan
ho-yihsin@sd.tmu.ac.jp
Yasunari Fujimoto
Faculty of System Design
Tokyo Metropolitan University
Tokyo, Japan
yfujimoto@sd.tmu.ac.jp
Toru Yamaguchi
Faculty of System Design
Tokyo Metropolitan University
Tokyo, Japan
yamachan@tmu.ac.jp


Abstract The authors developed an Attendant Robot system
for the elderly. The robot system is used to prevent user from
being at a loss. The system uses ZigBee-3D acceleration sensor
and Kinect sensor. Attendant Robot mounts the ZigBee access
point, and the ZigBee accelerometer tag is attached to users.
The ZigBee access point knows that user comes near to
Attendant Robot by finding the tag. This tag has a unique ID,
so Attendant Robot reacts to correlative ID only. Kinect sensor
detects people who stand in front of the Attendant Robot. This
system recognizes user by using function of Kinect and ZigBee
sensor. Attendant Robot navigates user using this system. In
this paper, the authors set up the proposed system and
performed experiment.
Keywordsuser recognition, Attendant Robot, ZigBee sensor
network, elderly service
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, various interaction robots are created and work
in many places. Mobility robots are also created for various
ways. For example, Nagao et al. [1] developed multi
direction smooth at narrow passage, and Kawagishi et al. [2]
developed a table type robot which supports users in
standing and walking. Therefore we thought that
collaboration with interaction robot and mobility robot
enables robot to interact with user adapting to user and
environment.
This paper proposes mobility Attendant Robot with 3D
accelerometer sensor network and Kinect sensor. In
previous research, the authors developed a navigation
system which combined interaction robot and mobility robot
together [3]. In this paper, in addition to navigation, we also
added recognition system which uses ZigBee-3D
acceleration sensor and Kinect sensor into the proposed
Attendant Robot. The ZigBee-3D acceleration sensor and
access point have a unique ID. The user recognition system
recognizes a user, who is the nearest to the mobility robot,
using this unique identify number. Similarly, the user area
recognition system recognizes an area where user is. Kinect
sensor recognizes humans skeleton and gesture. It also
measures the distance from user to the mobility robot.
The following sections explain the mobility Attendant
Robot system in more detail. Section 2 shows system outline.
Section 3 explains the robots navigation flowchart. Section
4 explains user recognition systems using 3D accelerometer
and Kinect sensor. Section 5 shows the experimental results.
And section 6 is conclusions.
II. SYSTEM OUTLINE
This section describes the outline of mobility Attendant
Robot. We had developed mobility function and an
interaction function for the Attendant Robot. A user is asked
to put ZigBee accelerometer tag in his/her pocket. ZigBee
access point is mounted on mobility function, and connects
with tags. The system measures distance from user to
Attendant Robot by field intensity. Attendant Robot moves
to user's desired destination using mobility function and
interacts with user by its utterance and gesture functions
using interaction function.
The proposed Attendant Robot is shown in Figure 1. It
has three sensors; laser range finder (LRF), Kinect, and
ZigBee sensor. LRF is used for collision avoidance. Kinect
is able to detect human, but cannot recognize whether
detected human is the user or not. Therefore, the authors use
ZigBee sensor for user recognition. With these three sensors,
if interaction part or mobility part needs different functions,
the proposed robot is able to change interaction part or
mobility part based on the situation. For example, if the user
is unsteadiness in walking, mobility robot changes to SVT-
001 developed by Vector Inc. Because it has handrail, user
is able to hang on to Attendant Robot.
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