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Objective: To assess the concurrent validity of a smart walker–integrated gait analysis system with the GAITRite® system for measuring spatiotemporal gait parameters in potential users of the smart walker. Design: Criterion standard validation study. Setting: Research laboratory in a geriatric hospital. Participants: Twenty-five older adults (⩾65 years) with gait impairments (habitual rollator use and/or gait speed <0.6 m/s) and no severe cognitive impairment (Mini-Mental State Examination ⩾17). Main measures: Stride, swing and stance time; stride length; and gait speed were simultaneously recorded using the smart walker–integrated gait analysis system and the GAITRite system while participants walked along a 7.8-m walkway with the smart walker. Concurrent criterion-related validity was assessed using the Bland–Altman method, percentage errors (acceptable if <30%), and intraclass correlation coefficients for consistency (ICC3,1) and absolute agreement (ICC2,1). Results: Bias for stride, swing and stance time ranged from −0.04 to 0.04 seconds, with acceptable percentage errors (8.7%–23.0%). Stride length and gait speed showed higher bias (meanbias (SD) = 0.20 (0.11) m; 0.19 (0.13) m/s) and not acceptable percentage errors (31.3%–42.3%). Limits of agreement were considerably narrower for temporal than for spatial-related gait parameters. All gait parameters showed good-to-excellent consistency (ICC3,1 = 0.72–0.97). Absolute agreement was good-to-excellent for temporal (ICC2,1 = 0.72–0.97) but only poor-to-fair for spatial-related gait parameters (ICC2,1 = 0.37–0.52). Conclusion: The smart walker–integrated gait analysis system has good concurrent validity with the GAITRite system for measuring temporal but not spatial-related gait parameters in potential end-users of the smart walker. Stride length and gait speed can be measured with good consistency, but with only limited absolute accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2022, a new team was formed to lead the Women in Engineering (WiE) Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). The new team is led by Karinne Ramirez-Amaro from the Chalmers University of Technology as the new chair, with the fantastic support of two co-chairs: Daniel Leidner from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Georgia Chalvatzaki from the Technical University of Darmstadt. Together, we are committed to encouraging and making a significant advance in a diverse environment within the Society to promote an inclusive and equitable culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-horizon task planning is essential for the development of intelligent assistive and service robots. In this work, we investigate the applicability of a smaller class of large language models (LLMs), specifically GPT-2, in robotic task planning by learning to decompose tasks into subgoal specifications for a planner to execute sequentially. Our method grounds the input of the LLM on the domain that is represented as a scene graph, enabling it to translate human requests into executable robot plans, thereby learning to reason over long-horizon tasks, as encountered in the ALFRED benchmark. We compare our approach with classical planning and baseline methods to examine the applicability and generalizability of LLM-based planners. Our findings suggest that the knowledge stored in an LLM can be effectively grounded to perform long-horizon task planning, demonstrating the promising potential for the future application of neuro-symbolic planning methods in robotics., Competing Interests: Author LR was employed by Amazon Alexa. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Chalvatzaki, Younes, Nandha, Le, Ribeiro and Gurevych.)

Robots can play a significant role as assistive devices for people with movement impairment and mild cognitive deficit. In this paper we present an overview of the lightweight i-Walk intelligent robotic rollator, which offers cognitive and mobility assistance to the elderly and to people with light to moderate mobility impairment. The utility, usability, safety and technical performance of the device is investigated through a clinical study, which took place at a rehabilitation center in Greece involving real patients with mild to moderate cognitive and mobility impairment. This first evaluation study comprised a set of scenarios in a number of pre-defined use cases, including physical rehabilitation exercises, as well as mobility and ambulation involved in typical daily living activities of the patients. The design and implementation of this study is discussed in detail, along with the obtained results, which include both an objective and a subjective evaluation of the system operation, based on a set of technical performance measures and a validated questionnaire for the analysis of qualitative data, respectively. The study shows that the technical modules performed satisfactory under real conditions, and that the users generally hold very positive views of the platform, considering it safe and reliable., Competing Interests: Authors AN, KK and PM were employed by the company Senseworks Ltd. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Moustris, Kardaris, Tsiami, Chalvatzaki, Koutras, Dometios, Oikonomou, Tzafestas, Maragos, Efthimiou, Papageorgiou, Fotinea, Koumpouros, Vacalopoulou, Papageorgiou, Karavasili, Koureta, Dimou, Nikolakakis, Karaiskos and Mavridis.)