MORPHIA

In 2017 approximately 3 million citizen lived in need of care. Most of them (2.6 million) at their own homes. Due to our aging society the number of people in need of care will increase within the next few years. When people who only need short-term care are taken into account, e.g. while recovering after an accident, the total number triples.

In contrast to that, the number of professional caregivers will not satisfy this demand in an appropriate way. Nowadays most of the care work is given by relatives. Professional caregivers visit between one and three times per day only, depending on the degree of severity. If relatives do not live in the same place, people in need of care and with a lack of social contacts live in isolation most of the day, which may cause a deterioration of mental and physical health.

The MORPHIA project aims to address this need for care and interaction over the day by developing, testing, evaluating and establishing a mobile assistive robot. The robot combines autonomous navigation and person detection with an easy to use system for bidirectional video telephony. It is planned that the it moves through challenging domestic environments (narrow passages, doorsteps, various undergrounds, etc.) autonomously while assisting the user, delivering incoming phone calls or patrolling in the users absence. An intuitive remote control will enable relatives and caregivers to easily remote control the robot while autonomous obstacle avoidance and navigation skills ensure safety aspects.

The MORPHIA robot allows relatives as well as caregivers to stay in contact with people in need of care in order to let them participate in social life and to monitor their mental and physical conditions.
By conducting long-term tests under real-life conditions, the ability to connect people in need of care to their relatives and caregivers, to enhance quality of life, shall be demonstrated.