Meet Alfie—A Robot Designed to Care for the Elderly

This robot can help the elderly be more independent by providing assistance with medicine and integrating with smart home technology.

MEET ALFIE.
A new robot is being developed as part of the ENRICHME project, which hopes to provide assistance to the elderly.Residents from the LACE Housing Association, located in Lincolnshire in the UK, where the robot was first introduced, named the prototype Alfie. Its tasks will include providing the elderly regular reminders to take their medication, finding misplaced objects around the house, and enabling video chats.

ENRICHME
The robot was programmed by the robotics team from University of Lincoln’s School of Computer Science and was introduced in December last year. So far, Alfie has received positive reviews from the residents of LACE, with numerous residents already looking forward to the final phase of testing schedule for 2017. “The system we are developing builds on recent advances in mobile service robotics and ambient assisted living to help people improve health and wellbeing. It will be of particular benefit to those people who have mild cognitive impairments, for example older people who are still physically healthy but may have early symptoms of dementia,” says Dr. Nicola Bellotto, Reader in Computer Science at the University of Lincoln and Principal Investigator for the initiative.