An affordable, intelligent robotic companion designed to assist the elderly with daily living, medication adherence, and emergency safety.
The global elderly population is expanding rapidly, presenting substantial socioeconomic and healthcare challenges, particularly in developing nations.
Senior citizens frequently miss critical medication schedules due to memory impairment, leading to severe health complications.
Living independently increases vulnerabilities to household hazards like fire, with delayed responses to critical events.
Reduced mobility and lack of continuous companionship lead to severe emotional and cognitive decline in the elderly.
A holistic approach combining healthcare assistance, safety surveillance, and emotional engagement.
Synchronized acoustic alarms and visual tablet prompts ensure medications are taken on time, with escalation alerts to caregivers.
Active optical sensors continuously monitor for fire hazards (760nm - 1100nm), triggering instant emergency notifications.
A chassis-mounted tablet offers games and video streaming to alleviate loneliness and provide cognitive engagement.
A custom Android app allows remote caregivers to maneuver the robot, configure schedules, and receive alerts via Bluetooth.
IR proximity sensors provide localized obstacle detection, ensuring smooth and collision-free bidirectional mobility indoors.
Built with off-the-shelf components facilitating straightforward maintenance and future sensor expansion like gas leak detection.
A seamless integration of embedded hardware and intuitive software.
Arduino Uno acts as the central brain, coordinating real-time sensor telemetry, parsing mobile app commands, and orchestrating actuator responses.
L298N dual H-bridge motor driver regulates smooth bidirectional robotic mobility with PWM speed control. Relay modules trigger peripheral devices.
HC-05 Bluetooth module ensures rapid, reliable bidirectional data exchange between the robot and the caregiver's mobile device in indoor environments.
A mounted tablet serves as the primary visual display for elderly interaction, while the MIT App Inventor app acts as the caregiver control portal.
Engineered for reliability, economic feasibility, and straightforward expandability.
Seamless interaction between the caregiver, the embedded robotic core, and the elderly user.
Caregiver sets medication schedules or maneuvers the robot via the Android mobile application.
The HC-05 module receives serial packets wirelessly, passing commands to the microcontroller.
Arduino Uno processes logic, triggers motors, sounds buzzers, or activates relay modules instantly.
Elderly user views visual alerts on the tablet, plays games, or hears medication audio reminders.
Technical details and operational scope of the GeriBot companion.
Wireless connectivity is governed by standard Bluetooth Class 2 operational range, which is approximately 10 meters indoor line-of-sight. This ensures robust and reliable communication in domestic environments without relying on cloud infrastructure.
No, the project is explicitly engineered as an assistive supportive aid rather than a certified medical diagnostic instrument or clinical treatment apparatus. It focuses on assistance, reminders, and safety surveillance rather than clinical diagnosis.
The robot features dual-mode navigation. It relies on IR proximity sensors for localized obstacle detection and collision avoidance during manual teleoperation. Advanced SLAM autonomous path planning is reserved for future iterations.
If the reminder is unacknowledged within a predefined grace period, the system's microcontroller transmits an escalation alert payload over Bluetooth to the caregiver's mobile application for immediate follow-up intervention.
The embedded firmware was developed using Arduino IDE in Embedded C/C++. Electronic circuits were simulated using Proteus VSM. The caregiver mobile application was engineered and compiled using MIT App Inventor.