Editorial:
Special Issue on Nursing Robots and Support Systems for Welfare Sites
Shoichiro Fujisawa, Masahiro Takaiwa, Yasuhisa Hirata, Shinya Kotosaka, and Daisuke Chugo
Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Tokushima Bunri University
1314-1 Shido, Sanuki, Kagawa 769-2193, Japan
Professor, Graduate School of Technology, Industrial and Social Sciences, Tokushima University
2-1 Minamijyousanjima-cho, Tokushima 770-8506, Japan
Professor, Department of Robotics, Tohoku University
6-6-1 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8579, Japan
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University
255 Shimo-Ohkubo, Sakura-ku, Saitama 338-8570, Japan
Professor, School of Engineering, Kwansei Gakuin University
2-1 Gakuen, Sanda, Hyogo 669-1337, Japan
Japan’s population is aging at a speed unprecedented in the world, and its shortage of caregivers has become a major issue. At the same time, the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to create unprecedented new value by connecting all people and things, allowing them to share various kinds of knowledge and information. In addition, as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data are undergoing a transformation that is changing the value of human labor, robots incorporating these innovative technologies are expected to solve the problems of the aging society. On the other hand, in the field of nursing care, the relationship between the caregiver and the care-receiver is basically a person-to-person connection. There is a question of how people and technology can coexist and produce new creations in such fields.
This special issue on Nursing Robots and Support Systems for Welfare Sites includes one review paper and 23 other interesting papers that cover the following topics:
· Research on independence support and systems to watch over the elderly.
· Research on support systems for diet, recreation, medication, etc. for people with dementia.
· Research on control and sensor systems for vital signs and excretion.
· Research on rehabilitation equipment for the physically handicapped.
· Research on assistive technologies for mobility support.
· Research on upper and lower limb power assistance devices and robots.
We thank all authors and reviewers of the papers as well as the Editorial Board of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics for their help with this special issue.
This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationa License.