Interactive robots for health in Europe: Technology readiness and adoption potential.

Introduction: Social robots are accompanied by high expectations of what they can bring to society and in the healthcare sector. So far, promising assumptions have been presented about how and where social robots are most relevant. We know that the industry has used robots for a long time, but what about social uptake outside industry, specifically, in the healthcare sector? This study discusses what trends are discernible, to better understand the gap between technology readiness and adoption of interactive robots in the welfare and health sectors in Europe. Methods: An assessment of interactive robot applications at the upper levels of the Technology Readiness Level scale is combined with an assessment of adoption potential based on Rogers' theory of diffusion of innovation. Most robot solutions are dedicated to individual rehabilitation or frailty and stress. Fewer solutions are developed for managing welfare services or public healthcare. Results: The results show that while robots are ready from the technological point of view, most of the applications had a low score for demand according to the stakeholders. Discussion: To enhance social uptake, a more initiated discussion, and more studies on the connections between technology readiness and adoption and use are suggested. Applications being available to users does not mean they have an advantage over previous solutions. Acceptance of robots is also heavily dependent on the impact of regulations as part of the welfare and healthcare sectors in Europe.

Technologies for an inclusive robotics education.

The H2020 project "INBOTS: Inclusive Robotics for a Better Society" (2018--21) has worked in different disciplines involved in the acceptance and uptake of interactive robotics, including the promotion of accessible and multidisciplinary education programs. In INBOTS, educational robotics is considered as a learning tool that can bring robotics into school classrooms and benefit all children regardless of their future educational or professional orientation. Aiming to make robotics education inclusive, INBOTS has introduced a paradigm shift inspired by sound pedagogies (Papert's constructionism) and emerging educational trends (the maker movement) and focused on creativity and other 21 st-century skills. However, the realisation of this new paradigm requires appropriate curricula and technologies at both hardware and software levels. This paper addresses several questions and dilemmas related to the technologies currently in use in robotics education and the kind of technologies that can best support the proposed paradigm. This discussion results in specific criteria that robotics technologies must fulfil to foster the new paradigm. Based on these criteria, we review some representative technologies in both hardware and software. Then, we identify and discuss some technological solutions that exemplify the kind of technologies that can best support inclusive robotics education and make the proposed paradigm feasible. Finally, we show how some of these technologies can be combined to design a creative and inclusive project consistent with the criteria set in this paper.