The aging society requires novel approaches to facilitate in-home services and support for ambient assisted living. The transformation of an everyday home into a supportive environment is a challenging task, as costs and necessary efforts are preventing us to change normal homes into high-tech care units. We present an alternative solution, in between fully networked homes on the one hand and smart artifacts on the other end of the scale, applying research results from robotics. We elaborate on the multi-dimensional interdisciplinary challenges that need to be addressed for successful future pervasive and personalized healthcare systems, and present a prototypic robotic service unit which could be developed further for industrialized and affordable mass customization.     «

The aging society requires novel approaches to facilitate in-home services and support for ambient assisted living. The transformation of an everyday home into a supportive environment is a challenging task, as costs and necessary efforts are preventing us to change normal homes into high-tech care units. We present an alternative solution, in between fully networked homes on the one hand and smart artifacts on the other end of the scale, applying research results from robotics. We elaborate on...     »