LISA Smart Walls

LISA comprises a two year research project (July 2010- July 2012) with a total cost volume of nearly 1 Million €, financed by the Italian government and the city of Bolzano. The consortium consists mainly of industry partners with TUM as leader of the consortium, both in terms of strategy and technology development.

Daily living becomes an important quality factor especially in the ageing society. Elderly people are facing limitations in most of their daily living activities. Novel approaches need to be followed when trying to service ageing society needs. Various research fields deal with Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), fusing different technologies, to enable mechanisms that could efficiently assist, enhancing the everyday living quality in the ageing society. In LISA, the implementation of a novel Robotic Service Wall supporting those ADLs was the main objective. The proposed system followed a modular approach, whereas all system elements provide "plug and play" characteristics. Such an approach enables an efficient system, which can be arranged and re-arranged into various configurations, and can be easily installed in any residence without requiring specific space dimensions.

Through LISA's mechatronic service wall, an Ambient intelligence Environment (AmI) can be created within a house or flat. TurtleBot is a Subsystem of the mechatronic wall and is utilized as an assistant to the user, controlled by vocal commands and hand gestures. The various elements and actuators of the robotic service wall are controlled using a human-machine communication scheme. The user provides the necessary commands to TurtleBot, which then controls the actuators and sensors of the mechatronic service wall. A variety of services can be addressed by the proposed system, contributing to a higher level of quality in ADLs. The development of the robotic service wall was a systemic and stepwise process. First, the general strategy was defined, and then the system modules and functions were designed. After an early design phase two 1:1 prototypes (each representing a system variation) were evaluated using an Age Simulation Suite. Finally the mechatronic service wall was installed for three months in a real house and evaluated by potential users.

Projekt-Flyer: Here

Publications:

C. Georgoulas, T. Linner, A. Kasatkin, T. Bock
An AmI Environment Implementation: Embedding TurtleBot into a novel Robotic Service Wall.
In: Proceedings of the 7th German Conference on Robotics (ROBOTIK), Munich, Germany, May 2012, Page 117-122.
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T. Linner, T. Bock
Rationalisierung des Wohnens: Flexibles Innenausbausystem mit integrierten Assistenz- und Mechatroniksystemen zur Unterstützung des selbstbestimmten Lebens älterer Menschen im Baubestand.
In: IBR Informationen Bau-Rationalisierung, August 2012, Issue no. 3, 41. Jahrgang, ISSN 1611-8995, Page 10-13.
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