Care Robot Development

Care Robot Development: The Korean Experience

Won-Kyung Song, PhD, National Rehabilitation Center, Seoul, Korea

Date: Friday 24th March 2023

Time: 10.00am  -11.00am

Location: Pam Liversidge Building, Floor A, Lecture Theatre 01 (located on the corner of Broad Lane and Newcastle Street) 

Join remotely via: https://meet.google.com/gmk-ezrg-gwb

As the Korean population rapidly ages, there is an increasing demand for caregivers. This threatens to leave people with severe disabilities or elderly people with mobility problems without adequate support. To address this issue, we are identifying suitable types of care robots for care applications and conducting user participation research to develop future care robots. We have identified nine types of care robots that are suitable for Korean care demands. Through a public-private partnership model that includes user participation, we are conducting discussions with caregivers, care recipients, and other relevant stakeholders. We are developing care robot devices for transfer, posture change, toileting, and feeding with the cooperation of universities, companies, and hospitals. We recognize the importance of an environment conducive to successful care robot use and have created three smart care spaces at the National Rehabilitation Center in Korea. These spaces are used to evaluate the usability of various robots or devices, with different sizes and purposes. We have surveyed and analyzed various services, including public coverage, and are providing smart care space information to local governments that require help when installing similar spaces in the future. Finally, I will mention our new care robot 5-year plan that begins this year.

This seminar is supported by a joint Medical Research Council/Korea Health Industry Development Institute MRC-KHIDI Partnering Award “Robotics for health and social care in a multicultural perspective”, and by the EPSRC NetworkPlus “EMERGENCE: Tackling Frailty - Facilitating the Emergence of Healthcare Robots from Labs into Service” (https://www.emergencerobotics.net). If you would like to talk with Dr. Song and his colleagues during his visit to Sheffield, please contact Stephen Potter (stephen.potter@sheffield.ac.uk).