Long Term Learning and Online Robot Behavior Adaptation for Individuals with Physical and Cognitive Impairments

The world’s population is growing older, and therefore a wide array of new challenges is arising. Most of the ageing population is expected to need physical and cognitive assistance. As the elderly population continues to grow, a lot of research started to be dedicated to assistive systems aimed at promoting ageing-in-place, facilitating living independently in one’s own home as long as possible, and helping caregivers and doctors to provide long-term rehabilitation/therapy protocols. In this paper, we present a new long-term learning and adaptive socially assistive robotic (SAR) system that aims to provide a customized help protocol through motivation, encouragements, and companionship to users suffering from physical and cognitive changes related to aging and/or Alzheimer’s disease.