Robot Companions For Citizens: Roadmapping The Potential For Future Robots In Empowering Older People

Abstract

Abstract. The Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagship Candi-date ”Robot Companions for Citizens ” (RCC) proposes a transformative initiative, addressing a cross-domain grand scientific and technological challenge, to develop a new class of machines and embodied information technologies, called Robot Companions for Citizens (RCCs) that can as-sist European society to achieve sustainable welfare. The central premise of RCC is that to solve many important problems in the real world one has to be physically instantiated and capable of action; information alone is not sufficient. An important theme is that this new generation of safe and human-friendly robots could assist in extending the active indepen-dent lives of older citizens and help compensate for the demographic shift in the age of EU citizens. In this paper we summarise some of the main conclusions of the Flagship pilot in relation to developing robot technologies that can empower older European citizens.