Can Sony's New Robot---Hana Jam Take Care Of The Elderly?

With the aging of the global population, the demand for elderly care in various countries is increasing day by day, but the nursing industry is generally facing a serious shortage of nursing staff. Against this backdrop, nursing care robots have emerged. 

Japan, as the world's most serious aging country, in this field of research and development and application of more advanced. Sony, as the giant of the Japanese electronics industry, has also accelerated its layout in this field.

Recently, Sony Group announced that it will display the company's self-developed care robot "HANAMOFLOR" (Hana Jam) in the Japan Science Future Museum (Koto-ku, Tokyo). It is reported that Hana Jam has been able to follow a pre-set program for simple conversation, and can already carry out simple conversations, temperature measurement, transfer the occupant's family phone and other operations, and is ready to pilot the application of care institutions.

I. The past and present life of nursing robots

Nursing care robot is an important application area of humanoid robotics. 1980s, with the emergence of humanoid robotics technology, robots to provide elderly care and rehabilitation services also began to gradually develop.

As early as 1984, the United States had developed a mobile service robot called "HelpMate", which is equipped with a variety of sensors, has an autonomous obstacle avoidance function, and can be used to deliver food, medication and other items. This can be seen as the prototype of nursing robots.

Into the 21st century, along with the rapid development of bionic technology and artificial intelligence, the performance of care robots continue to improve and optimize the application of the scene is also richer, from the initial simple delivery service, expanding to directly assist the caregiver to transfer the patient and so on. Now covers assisted care, companion interaction, home monitoring, sports rehabilitation and other aspects.

In the care robot technology, Japan has been at the forefront of the world, is also the main force in this area. Sony's research and development of "flower sauce", is bred in this context.

2,. Sony's "flower sauce"

The "Flower Sauce" has a child-like design with a friendly feel, is 83 centimeters tall, and weighs about 20 kilograms. It is mainly intended for use in places such as the living room of an elderly care facility.

The robot's most distinctive feature is that it has certain dialog and interaction functions. It is reported that the use of Sony's self-developed facial recognition technology and dialogue technology, can be in front of the person in front of the emotional analysis and judgment, and real-time communication. Therefore, even if the elderly in front of you have cognitive impairment or dementia symptoms, you can communicate easily.

Compared with other robots, the design concept and positioning of "Flower Sauce" is obviously closer to the actual needs of elderly care. Because for most of the elderly living alone or disabled, the lack of communication between people is the main pain point. A robot that can talk, listen, and measure body temperature will undoubtedly bring great comfort to their lives.

In 2019, Sony will conduct ongoing demonstration tests at the Special Care Center for the Elderly in Kawasaki City, while plans for the commercialization and mass production of the future "Flower Sauce" are yet to be confirmed.

Of course, judging from the current parameters, the performance and functionality of "Hana Jam" is still relatively limited. It can only carry out some of the most basic dialog, guessing games, obviously difficult to be fully comparable with real people.

But from the point of view of Sony such technology giants into the field of care robots, is undoubtedly the development of the industry as a whole is favorable. With strong technical support and financial support, care robots to "specialization" and "intelligent" step forward will only get faster and faster.

3. Can care robots completely replace manual labor?

In the field of elderly care, care robot business prospects and application space is huge, there is no doubt. But it is ultimately a tool and assistance, robot can really completely replace manual labor? At the current stage, the answer is no.

At present, the care robot in the emotional communication and flexible adaptability there are obvious shortcomings, it is difficult to match the professionally trained human caregivers. For example, if the elderly in the communication process of emotional outbursts crying or storming, a robot without the ability to emotional awareness obviously can not effectively respond to this complex situation still need to be resolved.

The main functions of the current nursing robot are centered around assisted care, such as delivering items, assisting walking, measuring vital signs and so on. And many of the same important part of the care work, such as feeding, grooming, bed care, etc., the actual operation requires a higher degree of flexibility, which puts forward higher requirements for the robot's control and coordination capabilities.

And many parts of the care work also need to communicate and collaborate with medical staff and family members. This is also a huge challenge to the robot's social skills, if it can not accurately understand the logic of human thinking, will only bring more obstacles to the work.

Therefore, from the current point of view, in the near future, human caregivers and care robots will still be parallel coexistence, complementary state. After all, the nursing field is related to life, human care is indispensable.

Along with the improvement of medical standards and life expectancy continues to increase, the demand for elderly care will be even more robust, the combination of human and scientific and technological power is an efficient solution. The emergence of care robots is not to "take away jobs", but to share more work with caregivers so that more elderly people can benefit, which is what we should agree on.