i–REACH

Intelligent Robotic Elderly Assistant To Create Hope

for better better life

About i–REACH

i–REACH is a research effort to develop intelligent robotic technology to enable “intelligent Robotic Elderly Assistant to Create Hope” for better life. The project is funded by Research Grant Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region through Theme Based Research Scheme.
0 %
2005
0 %
2020
The proportion of the population aged 65 and over in Hong Kong

Rationale

Hong Kong, like the rest of the world, is facing a significant societal challenge – a rapidly aging society. The proportion of the population aged 65 and over in Hong Kong increased from 16.6% in 2005 to 31.1% in 2020. The number of people aged 65 or older worldwide is estimated to reach 1.6 billion by 2050. In terms of quality of life, many older people experience a severe limitation in mobility and manipulability in their daily life, resulting in tremendous social and economic challenges.

Hence, it is essential to develop innovative intelligent robotics systems to improve mobility and manipulability, prevent falls, enhance independence, and improve the quality of life of older adults. In particular, an innovative User-Centric Co-creation (UC3) approach to developing novel intelligent wearable robots has been proposed to enhance mobility and manipulability.

Objective

To raise the quality of life of older adults, the project objectives are:

Objective 1

To understand the user needs for intelligent robotics-enabled elderly assistance in technology development

Objective 2

To develop a sensor-driven soft exoskeleton system for intelligent robotics- enabled elderly assistance

Objective 3

To develop an integrated interactive environment to support the intelligent robot- enabled elderly assistance, and to significantly improve performance and safety.

Objective 4

To develop an experiment platform to test, evaluate and demonstrate the developed systems, emphasizing mobility and manipulability.

Significance

The outcomes of the project, especially the assistive technology/developed intelligent robotics systems will benefit a group of older adults who suffer from sarcopenia with partial mobility loss. After full commercialization and technology transfers, the technology will extend to cater the needs of older adults and other users who need mobility assistance.

Impact

The outcomes of the proposed project will place Hong Kong in the frontier of global robotics research and technology development, provide critical technology information to transform the elderly care services in Hong Kong, and create opportunities for training the next generation of scientists and engineers in robotics and assistive technologies in Hong Kong.