ROBO REHKIDS

The social and in the meantime also legal claim (see Federal Participation Act) to realize social participation of children and adolescents with the most diverse forms of disabilities is on the one hand firmly anchored, on the other hand the implementation still hangs enormously in most places. In addition to urgently needed conceptual, organizational and personnel adjustments, the potential for robotic assistance systems in this area is far from exhausted. Their use offers special opportunities, especially for the target group of children and young people, because their unprejudiced attitude toward and ability to learn with technical assistance systems is particularly pronounced. The intensified, self-determined and everyday use of such assistance robotics therefore offers good opportunities to improve participation and also quality of care under given health economic conditions.

The challenge

The project "ROBO REHKIDS" aims to empirically investigate the feasibility as well as the effectiveness and effects of the use of assistance robotics for therapy and support of the target group. Reference processes from everyday care and home life form the basis for the interaction scenarios and patterns to be researched. The focus is on the improvement of existing systems with regard to human-robot interaction. Accompanying the evaluation and improvement of the robotic systems, the integration into the care is worked on from the perspective of usability, ethics and safety, the care process, the medical device law, health economics as well as standardization and migration into the existing technical infrastructures.

Our contribution

The scientific work objectives of the concept phase of the project ROBO REHKIDS mainly cover the feasibility study of the competence center as well as the concept development of a model project. With the competence network, organizational structures and methods for the use as well as the further development of robotic systems for children with disabilities are to be created. The structured derivation of the strategy of the competence center is based on the balanced scorecard method, which was extended by a socio-scientific and socio-political perspective, in the sense of holism.   

Results

The results of the six-month conception project are:

• Differentiation of the innovation field and development of the strategic basis in the form of a mission statement and recommendations for action
• Concept development for the competence center and initialization
• Preparation of the implementation of the model project, including the concretization of the scenario and the selection of relevant application and technology partners.

Funding   

• Sponsor: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the research program on human-technology interaction "Bringing Technology to People
• Funding code: 16SV8633
• Duration: 03/2021-08/2021