Researchers at Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotic Lab have projects underway to explore both age-in-place and facility-based care applications for robots.
According to a January 4, 2011 article at Scientific American.com, the Georgia Tech researchers are working on robots to open doors and drawers and pick objects up off the floor. Last May the lab was awarded a PR2 robotics kit from Willow Garage in California as a beta program recipient. The test kit is a personal robot that includes software that works right out of the box. (Sixteen institutions were awarded PR2s for experimentation and to encourage cross-collaboration.)
At Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Web site, additional projects include "Cody" a robot learning to perform a "robotic bed bath" on a live person (see the robotic bed bath video).
What do you think? Are robots the wave of the future for our parents and our selves?
Read more about the PR2 at this Scientific American Web page.
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