'Rumi Helps' Suncheon City Begins Elderly Care with AI Companion Robots

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[Suncheon=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City, Jeollanam-do (Mayor Noh Gwan-gyu) announced on the 28th that it will start an artificial intelligence (AI) companion robot care service for elderly customized care service recipients.

The city held a companion robot adoption ceremony and will conduct a pilot project for the ‘Companion Robot Care Service’ for daily care of the elderly and disabled from the 1st of next month until December.

The AI non-face-to-face companion robot (elderly companion doll) was developed to prevent diseases such as depression and dementia in the elderly, as well as solitary death and suicide.

In particular, it was made more friendly as a Lumi character doll symbolizing the black-faced spoonbill, a representative migratory bird of Suncheon.

The service provides personalized schedule management through customized notifications such as weather, sleep, and medication intake, emotional management where the robot initiates conversation to act as a companion, and safety management service that alerts caregivers or administrators if risky words like ‘I’m depressed’ are used.

Through this pilot project, the city will distribute companion robots to 100 elderly customized care recipients, and after the pilot project ends, conduct a satisfaction survey. If the effectiveness is verified, a full-scale project will be promoted from next year.

Mayor Noh Gwan-gyu of Suncheon said, “We expect that AI companion robots will greatly help not only in emotional and health management of the elderly but also in preventing various accidents,” and added, “We hope that smarter robots with various functions will be developed and distributed through big data, and we will strive to ensure that no blind spots occur in elderly customized care.”

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