Robotic Communication Terminals as a Mobility Support System for Elderly and Disabled People (3).

Abstract

This is the third paper of Robotic Communication Terminals(RCT) which was selected as a theme of Challenge for Realizing Early Profits (CREP) in 2002 anuual conference of JSAI. RCT is a mobility support system for the elderly and disabled people, which assists for their impaired elements of mobility--- recognition, actuation, and information access. The RCT consist of three types of terminals: ``environment-embedded terminal'', ``user-carried mobile terminal'', and ``user-carrying mobile terminal''. These terminals communicate with one another to provide the users with a comfortable means of mobility. This paper introduces our recent research progress in three parts: developing RCT prototypes in section 3, interfaces and servers for users navigation in section 4, and user surveys about daily mobility problems with 3,503 responses in section 5.