Page 52 - Mechatronics for Safety Security and Dependability in a New Era

Ch08-I044963.fm Page 35 Tuesday, August 1, 2006 12:31 PM
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3.2 Expected main Functions
(1) Monitoring of health condition, human behavior and supporting the related communications
- According to the trigger from bio-metric sensor, or processing result of vision sensor for human
behavior, the robot inform to the caring persons at remote side by calling to handy phone.
- The robot helps the communication between elderly people and caring persons by phone.
(2) "Pick and Pass"
- According to the request from the touch panel, the robot provides the view on the touch panel,
from CCD. The user touches the target to be picked up, control the robot by inching motion.
- The user controls the pick up motion of the robot, until it is done successfully.
(3) "Push or Touch a switch", and other variations
- The variation of other functions as combination of going to the requested location,
and performing the related motions, are executed in same way.

4. A BUSINESS MODEL OF HEALTHCARE PARTNER ROBOTS, AND THE RELATED
DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

4.1 Value Analysis of Healthcare support

The caring helpers get the salary under the condition that they take a rest in the night for example,
without exceptional cases. The value which Healthcare Partner Robot provides, is the opportunities
and the free time to take a rest in the night for those who are working for continuous care, like family
members, helpers in the various care homes.

As the varieties of" A BIT OF CARE" requests from "Light Users" are covered by Healthcare Partner
Robot, the elderly people can take care by themselves, while the helpers are NOT available. This is the
value as complement to the existing care system, both for caring, and elderly people.

4.2 Acceptable Cost comparing with other available equipments, and similar case; Service Dog

There are NO equivalent equipment to compare the exact same value. But there are similar equipments
as physical effects. The typical cost of these are,
l)Lift for transfer among bed/wheelchair etc. in home 0.7 Million yen
2)Bed with electrical moving function 0.4 Million yen
The similar case, service dog, cost about 3 Million yen for training, and has capability to execute about
10 customized functions. If we calculate by each function, it cost about 0.3 Million yen. Therefore, the
typical acceptable cost for Healthcare Partner Robot is around from 0.3 to 1.0 Million yen for a few
major functions.

4.3 An example of Business Model and related development strategies

(1) Rental Sales to several channels for Hospitals, Care Facilities, and Personal Use, through technical
support agents. But the real customer claims come in directly.
(2) Healthcare Menu Software works on the same platform of touch panel through the network, which