WEBVTT - The Robotic Future of Elder Care - Lab 100 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.760 One of my greatest fears is doing something ridiculous in 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:05.480 my house late at night, because you know how I 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.520 like to shuffle around and I hurt myself and no 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.799 one hears me call for help. You know, No, that 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.600 is scary, right it is. But what if instead of 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.360 laying on the ground needing life alert, there was a 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.119 robot that could catch me before I even feel I 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:23.239 love that idea. 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.240 So today we're gonna be talking elder care engineering and 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.680 the soft, squishy future of robotic support. I'm TT and 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:39.560 I'm Zakiah and this is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.960 a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science with pop culture 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:50.760 and a healthy dose of friendship. In today's lab, we're 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.880 talking about aging in America and the technology that could 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:58.200 help us stay safer for longer. Our guest is Roberto Bowley, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.080 a mechanical engineering PhDc student MIT who's designing a robot 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.679 that can literally catch you when you fall. It's called Ebar. 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.399 But before we meet the robot, let's set the stage. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.240 What do we know? So between twenty ten and twenty twenty, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.920 the US Census told us that the over sixty five 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:22.160 population saw the largest and fastest growth spurt that has 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.480 seen since to like late eighteen hundreds, and according to 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.840 the Urban Institute, by twenty forty, we're expecting one in 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.679 five Americans to be over sixty five. And what do 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:32.760 we want to know? 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.280 Well, I want to know what kind of tech could 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.880 actually help? Like, how do you build a robot that 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.200 doesn't feel scary, you know, not like the ones that 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.160 from I robot that are going to turn on you? 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.000 And yeah, what were they thinking? Or that's too invasive? 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:48.760 You know what I mean? 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.440 Yeah, what does it take to go from a great 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:57.160 idea to a real life idea that's manifesting in front 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:01.640 of you, that is safety certified and in someone's living room. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.280 I think we're ready to jump right into the dissection. 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.360 My name is Roberto Bolly. I'm a graduate student at 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.280 MIT studying mechanical engineering. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.160 Where do you think some of our biggest disconnects are 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.120 between people's hopes for what that kind of aging looks 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.360 like and what our current caregiving support infrastructure delivers today. 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:26.720 So we actually we did a lot of interviews with 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.280 elderly people where do they need support? What kind of 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.440 support are they looking for? And we found like virtually 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.760 everybody we interviewed once to Asian place at home, Like 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.200 that's like, I feel like the goal. It's like, you 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.200 get older, you live at home, you have hobbies like 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.000 gardening or moving around the home, and you know, you 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:49.400 just gracefully age in place. The reality is that something 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.440 like thirty or forty percent of elderly people fall each year. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.080 Oh and oftentimes when they fall it's like a debilitating injury. Like, 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.560 if you're young, you fall, it's not to make a deal. 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:01.440 You might get a bruise or something. But if you're 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:03.440 old and you fall, you can sometimes break a hip. 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.520 And so unfortunately, what we see is a lot of 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.000 people get shuttled into nursing care or long term care, 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.560 and they often don't like it. They want to go 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.560 back to their homes. Sometimes they get suboptimal care because 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.399 there's also a big shortage of caregivers. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.320 Can you clarify what age is elderly? 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:24.680 Ah? 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:27.880 I think in our lab we've been looking at people 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.600 over sixty five, but there's no really good definition. Because 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.080 I met someone who is seventy five and who bikes 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.520 like eight miles a day is in probably better shape 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.560 than me, but more than like an age we're looking 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.800 at like a subgroup. So we say people who have 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.960 like medium muscle strength, so they're able to hold onto 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.000 handlebars or do activities of daily living, but they may 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:52.960 lose their balance or they have a tendency to fall, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.560 and sometimes for hard transfers like getting out of a bathtub, 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:58.760 they require assistance, like they need to grab onto a 0:03:58.760 --> 0:03:59.600 handlebar or something. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.880 When we consider the increasing demand for care of an 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.560 aging population, you and your team are proposing robotics as 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.840 a solution or at least an enhancement. And from what 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.240 you've said, people want robotics, which I'm surprised by. I 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.960 think I would have intuitively thought that older people would 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:18.279 be anti robotic. 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:20.839 I would have thought that too, But then I mean, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.880 here comes Ebar, this really amazing invention of yours that's 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.200 meant to help older people in the ways that they 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:28.920 want to be helped. 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.799 Yeah, for sure. So Ebar came about because we're looking 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:35.640 around through the literature and through what devices are available, 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.320 and we found that for robots that actually catch a fall, 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.159 pretty much all of them you have to wear a 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.520 harness or like some sort of wearable device. But like 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.360 elderly people hate to do that. The feedback we got 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.679 was that it makes them feel old and it's sometimes cumbersome. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.120 So we're trying to develop a robot that can catch 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.719 a fall without any like having to wear any sort 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.760 of device. And then another thing we found is that 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.080 a lot of elder care robut it's only a few 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.240 that have looked at physical assistance. But typically you have 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.599 to stand within what's called the base of support of 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.160 the robot. So if you imagine all the points of 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.760 the robot that touch the floor, if you like connect 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.200 them with lines, as long as you stand within that area, 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.960 the robot will never tip because you're within the base 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.960 of support. But if you're outside, for some robots, they 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.960 can tip over. So we're trying to design a robot 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.440 that stable even if you're outside of that base of support, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.560 because then it can go like over bathtuble lips, it 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.240 can go like onto a bed, it can go over 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.320 like gaps and obstacles. So we put these two together 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.520 and we developed what my professor calls like a mobile 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.440 forklift or robotic candlebars. 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.039 I think that that is so fascinating and such a 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.080 leap forward in the technology for the folks that you 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.400 know they're going to be listening. They can't see us. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.760 Hopefully they'll do their googles to be able to see ebar. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.640 Can you just describe what ebar looks like from top 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.679 to box so that somebody can visualize it in their mind. 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.159 Sure, yeah, I'll try to do my best. It's this 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.680 robot that can drive around. It can catch people with 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.280 airbags when they fall. It can like physically lift them 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.560 up with this sort of U shaped fork at the front, 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:16.479 and then it has handlebars for them to grab onto. 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.320 It's kind of just this big U that's padded with 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.760 handlebars on the front and on the back. That's the 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:24.000 part of the robot that you grab onto. You can 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:25.920 rest your forearms on it, or you can just grab 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.120 onto the handlebars on the side. And it has the 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.080 airbags underneath which can grab onto your waist. So that 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.480 U shaped fork is attached to a big linkage, and 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.719 then that whole thing is attached to an omnidirectional drive base. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.360 And so the drive base, you know, like if you're 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.040 trying to parallel parker car, you can't just like slide 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:45.800 into a spot. You kind of have to move back 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:46.200 and forth. 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.800 Right, Oh, Yeah. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.120 So this robot has four wheels. Each wheel can independently 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.640 rotate and translate, and so you can actually just go 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.200 and then move sideways instantly, so it can move in 0:06:58.279 --> 0:06:58.880 any direction. 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:00.920 That's great, That is amazing. 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.080 I didn't put this in the paper, but I believe 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.360 it's probably the world's fastest elder care robot. So we 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.320 limit the power for safety, but it has a max 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.800 speed of around twelve feet per second. It's very powerful, 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:17.800 it's moved. 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:19.480 I need one of those for my home. 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:22.960 We limit it to like one to two feet per second. 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:24.800 You know, they don't want to cause any injuries. 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.840 Yeah. I think that's a great description of the design 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.920 of how ebar looks. And I watched some of the 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.960 footage that you all share it's on YouTube, and it 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:37.480 looked like you had I don't know if it was 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.800 PlayStation or Xbox style, like a joystick on there, a controller. 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.280 Was that part of early testing? You know, what kind 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.880 of control system does e bar have? 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.120 Yeah? So right now, in the original paper, it's just 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:52.800 manually controlled with a joystick, like similar to what you 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.600 see with mobility scooters, where there's a joystick and people 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.400 just sort of move it around. Currently, right now in 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.440 the lab, we're working on automating some of the functionality. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.800 So we have a project where we're trying to use 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.600 the drive base to track a person automatically so it 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.280 can follow them around. And so you know, it's a 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.720 lot of work to do that sort of automation, so 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.040 we kind of just went for manual control first, but 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:17.280 we're definitely looking into it. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:18.280 That's really cool. 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.120 My background is also engineering, and so I also have 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.960 a degree in mechanical engineering, and so I know that 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.880 part of this is about footprint, because if you're thinking 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.360 about the function of this robotis to help folks with 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.880 getting around and to keep them safe, we know that 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.960 it has to be able to take up as least 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.760 amount of space as possible. Can you talk about the 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.640 role that the robots footprint played in your design and 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.880 how did you make sure that it could navigate in 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.720 tight spaces inside of a home without tipping over or 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.240 interfering with other things in the house or the user. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.840 Yeah, for sure, for sure. So our goal was to 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.240 make the robe but as small as possible. The problem 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.480 is that you know, if it were just like six 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.600 inches wide, it would tip over immediately. So what we 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.800 did is. We set up a sort of an optimization problem, 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:18.000 and from a high level we said, okay, like how 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.840 small can we make the drive base and how heavy 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.040 can we make it so that it doesn't fall through 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.960 the floor. Because you know, if you think about a person, 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.640 a person occupies about one square foot of space if 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.240 they're standing up straight. He said, okay, you know the 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.319 average person. A floor can support a person that weighs 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.480 maybe two hundred three hundred pounds, no problem, So we'll 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.520 try to limit the robot weight to that. Then we 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.480 looked at like what are the maximum forces people can 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:46.080 apply laterally and horizontally. So it turns out the US 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.040 military has done a lot of studies like this in 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.240 the eighties and they found that, like I think it's 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.280 like one hundred and twenty Newton's horizontal force, they have 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.400 like force from any orientation. So we can quantify this 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.800 really well, like when you're standing up, how much can 0:09:58.800 --> 0:09:59.760 you push on the robot? 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:00.400 Right? 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:02.800 So we put all that together and we have a 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.400 cost function. With the cost function says, okay, how can 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.920 I shrink the robot as much as possible while still 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.960 satisfying the load bearing constraints? And so putting those all together, 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:15.800 the actual wheels of the drive base occupy around a 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.040 ten inch square and then we have two sort of 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:22.080 outriggers like almost antennae, so we can get a little 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.360 bit more stability. And so the footprint of the robot, 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.959 I think it's around the base itself is around fifteen 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.440 inches by fifteen inches, not including the outriggers. Wow, with 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.319 the outriggers, it's a little bit bigger. I think they're 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.720 around twenty inches wide. But your average doorways are somewhere 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.000 between twenty eight to thirty six inches, so we still 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.120 got plenty of space around the door. 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:44.439 That's amazing. 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.240 And you know, I know that this is designed for 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:49.720 elderly folks that need help around the house, but I 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.000 can already imagine this helping a lot of people who 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:57.440 are differently abled from the disabled community. And did you 0:10:57.600 --> 0:10:59.880 consider that as you were designing? Is that something that 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.240 also came into your mind as another use for ebar? 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.480 Sort of, So we did think about using it for 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.800 Parkinson's patients because they sometimes just have a struggle maintaining 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.240 their balance, But I think absolutely it could be applied 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.880 towards different populations all be honest, we specifically designed it 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.600 for elderly persons, but I think you know, there are 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.400 certainly other people who could benefit from the robot. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.000 Absolutely. I think that's such a good point that TT's 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.200 talked about before in engineering and design. We've talked about 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.320 it in just inclusivity across the board in anything that 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.360 you create. You know, the more you think about who 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.640 this can help, the more people benefit from it, even 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.720 people you didn't consider. I want to know about how 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:47.440 you're these different types of assistance that ebar provides, because 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.160 it's not just that you have to fall in. Because 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:51.520 of the shape of it and because of how you 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.640 designed it, it seems like it can do more than 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.400 just like wait until you're at the ground and needing 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.720 to be lifted, right, like ebar can come in ahead 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:01.839 of time. Yeah, I'd love to hear you talk a 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.040 little bit more about the different falls you anticipate it, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:07.520 or the different types of knees you anticipated, and how 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.319 you build all those things together into this system. 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.560 Yeah. For sure. Our goal was to catch a person 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:17.480 before they fell, because when they're on the ground, oftentimes 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.520 they may be unconscious, they may have passed out, and 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.480 it's kind of a bad situation to be and if 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:24.960 the person's already on the ground, right, So you're thinking 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:26.360 of how to do it, and we came up with 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.319 the idea of using airbags because they're soft, you can 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.960 have like a large contact area. And the question is, 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.440 like is it physically possible. So a previous student in 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.320 my lab has worked on like fall prediction and she 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.839 found that you can predict a fall up to two 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.360 hundred fifty milliseconds before the person actually starts to fall down. Wow, 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.560 And that's why using like a waste mounted sensor called 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.160 an im you. So we said, okay, two fifty milliseconds, 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.880 that's our target inflation time. Can we like fully inflate 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.520 the airbags and catch a person right before they so then, yeah, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.000 we tried different shapes and sizes and configurations of airbags. 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.679 I tested a lot on myself, you see, like how 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.640 how much can I inflate them before it becomes painful? 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:13.880 And then we looked at studies of like skin bruising 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.440 because you know, we know that elderly people's skin are 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.320 kind of sensitive, so we didn't want to cause them 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.960 any danger or put them in risk of bruising their skin. 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.960 And we settled with a configuration of four airbacks. There's 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.160 two big ones on the side and then two smaller 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.920 ones on the front like columns, so when they inflate, 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.560 they sort of push the person back into the robot. 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.200 And then we developed a rapid like two stage inflation 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.040 system that can inflate them within two hundred and fifty milliseconds, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.040 so if you're walking, you know, right now. Again, it's 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:45.920 all done manually, but we have done work in our 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.000 lab about like detecting falls, just haven't implemented it on 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.360 the robot yet. The idea is, if you begin to fall, 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.520 the airbags which just rapidly inflate and gravy and sort 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.720 of hold on to you, and so you're kind of 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:58.560 frozen in this position, but you have a chance to 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.199 regain your balance, or we can deflate the airbags and 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.839 you can continue normally, or we can just hold you, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:05.840 you know, until someone can come to help. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.720 And so the next part of the engineering is to 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.720 you know, test it out on the users. I'm wondering, 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.080 you know, one, I think it'll be interesting to hear 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.240 like how you get volunteers for this or who you 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.480 recruit to test these things out, and then also what 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.960 their feedback was and how that informs like how you 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.080 move forward and any changes that you might make. 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.720 The major thing we have to make sure before we 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.360 can roll actual elderly persons that it's completely safe because 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.200 we don't want to cause anyone any injury. So right 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:55.520 now we've been testing in healthy volunteers. By healthy volunteers, 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.800 I mean myself and a couple of my web mates. Okay, 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.320 but yeah, the idea is to refine the system to 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.840 make sure it's safe, to you know, sort of measure 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.920 the forces which we have been and so far everything's good. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.800 Then we can apply for approval from our university and 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:12.840 then start enrolding elderly persons. 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:17.040 Okay, this sounds really cool because you've called EBAR a 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.960 step towards aging in place. And I am thinking back 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.520 to those commercials where people were like life alert and 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.320 they were waiting until they already fail. And like you said, 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.240 after you've once you hit the ground, anything could happen. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.160 You could be unconscious. But like I think about what 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:37.240 this could mean. Something you mentioned is how maybe stressed 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.600 our healthcare system is for aging adults. Yes, we're talking 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.120 about this in the home, but could you imagine this 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.600 type of tech in other places like care facilities or 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.640 as part of public programs. How do you imagine this tech? 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.120 You know, I know we're looking much further ahead, but 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:54.400 how do you imagine it scaling? 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.800 I think for me personally, i'd say, like, I think 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.920 the gold standard is a human being. It's very difficult 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.200 for robot to replace a human, right. I think We've 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.120 seen this again and again. But the reality is that 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.680 if there is a care shortage, I think it's better 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:12.200 to like augment the shortage with robots than just to 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.840 not be able to do anything about it. So one 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.400 thing we were thinking is like in nursing homes, ebar 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.320 could sort of handle some of the easier tasks. If 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.960 a person just needs to walk, for example, to a sink, 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.120 then ebar could help them out. But very complex tasks 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.720 like lifting a person into a bathtub with a sling 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.400 like those can still be done by the caretakers, so 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.280 it can sort of free them up. That instead of 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.440 elderly persons having to wait a long time for care 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.120 that if for some tasks we could send the robot 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.360 and for some tasks we could send a human caretaker. 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.840 I love that because Menzakia talk about this all the 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.320 time where a lot of solutions to the world's problems 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:54.240 is not an or response like this or that. It's 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.200 an and so not to say, oh, Ebar is going 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.240 to replace all caregivers, there won't be a need for 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.120 a human. It's like, no, you can have the human 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.520 and you can have e bar, which to supplement and 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:10.280 it makes it an even better experience. I'm curious about, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.320 you know, what are the next steps with ebar. Are 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:19.480 there any like upgrades or advancements that you want to 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.160 add to EBAR, or what's the vision or are there 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.479 things that you want to do outside of e bar 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.679 to also help supplement EBAR. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.600 Yeah, that's a great question. Honestly, it's discussion my advisor 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:38.960 had with me almost immediately after I submitted the paper. Yeah. 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.400 I think certainly there's room for making the robots smaller 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.320 and more compact. I've talked with a lot of people, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:47.439 even my parents are saying like, hey, you should add 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:49.840 something that can pick up a person's phone if it 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.960 falls down, like a sort of a coup holder on 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.560 the robot. I said, well, that's great. I'd love to 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.520 do that, but I don't know if I can really 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:03.760 put that in my thesis work. So one of the 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.960 other things our lab is looked into is handlebar optimization. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:08.800 Like if you think about it, when you go into 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.280 restrooms or some public places, you see handlebars on the walls. 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.679 It turns out there's not really been a lot of 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.080 work that's been done on like is this the biomechanically 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:22.200 optimal location for handlebar? And because like you know, who knows, 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:23.600 it could be in front of you, it could be 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.919 like up here, it could be like down there. So 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:28.800 we were trying to look into, like can we make 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.600 a model of a person and then predict like where 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.080 is the optimal place for handlebar it maybe reduces the 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.160 muscle strength the most or provides the most support. So 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.320 that sort of stuff I think is interesting and I 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.719 think could compliment a robot like e bar because then 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.440 it helps us nowhere to position the U shaped fork 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.520 based on the posture of the person. So yeah, that's 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:50.480 I guess that sort of work that we've been looking 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:52.560 to and thinking about pursuing in the future. 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:54.920 Okay, I think this is so cool. 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:56.280 Things. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:01.000 You know, this is totally outside my comfort zone of science. 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:03.720 TT understands this kind of stuff way better than me, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.680 which is why she has such great questions, is there 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.359 anything else here seeing in the field of robotics and 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.639 elder care? Is there anything else you're excited about this 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.840 in the research pipeline, even if it's not in your lab, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.720 like with other labs that do great work that you see, Ye, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:19.680 that feels promising. 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:24.320 So we are collaborating with So just full disclosure. But 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.960 at Stanford, Alison O Kumurro, she did a lot of 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.760 work on these things called vine robots. They're sort of 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.679 like flexible tubes. They can inflate and they can go 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.600 under a person. And so we have this idea. It's like, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.520 wait a second, you have an elderly person lying in 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.320 bed and you want to like put them in a sling, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.000 Like right now, you've got to lift them up and 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.560 pull a slip. What if the sling just like inflated 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.600 under them, like and then you could just pick them 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.680 up that way. So that work I think we've been 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.000 doing with her. But she was the one who's been 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.080 working on vine robots. I think that's really cool. In 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.200 terms of other labs and other research, we see a 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.280 lot of work with humanoids. Humanoid robot seems to be 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.480 like the next big thing. There's a bunch of companies 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.639 pursuing humanoids, and so people have started looking into like 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.639 using a humanoid for sit to stand assistance, which I 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.720 think is pretty cool. My concern with it is just, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.520 especially if the robot has two feet, it's not going 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.919 to be a stable as something that has like a heavy, 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.399 big drive base. You know, like if the robot and 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:30.439 the person fall down, then that's really bad. But I 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.560