This year’s IROS conference entitled “The Next Generation of Robotics” took place from October 1 to 5 in Detroit. At this prominent international gathering for the robotics research community, 18 MIRMI researchers, alongside their teams, orchestrated five workshops and delivered a collective presentation of 38 papers.
Specifically, Dr.-Ing A. Naceri (project leader Y, Garmisch-Partenkirchen) and Dr.-Ing L. Figueredo (project leader X) organized a workshop entitled “Geriatronics – AI and robotics for health and well-being in old age”. This presents a tremendous opportunity to disseminate the objectives and challenges of the TUM Lighthouse Initiative ‘Geriatronics’ based in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The initiative is dedicated developing tangible robotics and AI solutions that empower individuals to maintain self-determination and independence throughout their lives. The emphasis is on deploying personalized robots and assistance technologies to support overall health and well-being in the elderly.
The workshop addressed those main questions: How can new generation of robotics and AI technology address the challenges stemming from the increasing shortage and geographic disparities of care providers and the overburdened health-care and how to build a new generation of accessible, intelligent assistive robotics technologies that enhance independence and self-determination for people. In addition, how to address the natural morals and ethics and/or individual needs/dilemmas in a world of care-supporting robots – because despite assistance systems, the focus should still be on people itself.
The workshop on the first day of the conference made it possible to present the unique research field of Geriatronics on an international stage and to arouse the interest of the international politics.