ARMEN: Assistive robotics to maintain elderly people in natural environment

Abstract : This document presents the research project ARMEN aiming at the conception of an assistive robot very simple to use and providing advanced functions to help maintaining disabled or elderly people at home. The document presents the robot SAM and the functions of navigation, of emotion detection from speech, of image understanding, the knowledge representation and the avatar conceived for the supervision of the robot in an intuitive way. The document presents the results of the technical evaluations made showing the interest and potential of these functions for practical applications. The document presents the clinic evaluations that will take place soon to validate the development made with elderly and handicapped people in a therapeutic setting. The protocol used for these evaluations is described before the presentation of conclusions evoking the perspective of the project.