Many assistive robots for elderly and disabled people have been developed in the past few decades. However, very few of them became commercially available. The major cause of the problem is that the cost-benefit ratio and the risk-benefit ratio of them are not good or not known. The evaluation of them should be done in the light of the impacts of assistive technologies on users’ whole life, both in short-term and long-term. In this paper, we propose a framework of evaluation and design of assistive robots using ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health). The goal of the framework is the realization of the life design and the improvement of the quality of life using assistive technologies. We describe the concept of utilizing ICF in the development process of assistive robots, and demonstrate its utility by using some examples of practical application such as the analysis of daily living, the design of assistive robots and the evaluation of assistive robots. We also show the issues of using ICF for further development of the framework. 1. Introduction There are growing needs for assistive robots which support independent life of elderly and disabled people or help people who work at the assistance and the nursing care. Although a great number of assistive robots, for example, wheelchair robots [1], walking assist robots [2], upper-limb assist robots [3, 4], communication robots [5, 6], and so forth, have been developed in the past few decades, very few of them became commercially available. We believe the major cause of the problem is that the cost-benefit (or risk-benefit) ratio is not good or not known. Cost, risk, and benefit are three important evaluation axes of assistive robots. They are contradictory criteria, so getting full points on all the evaluation axes at the same time is difficult. Therefore, quantitative evaluation of them and the trade-off among them are indispensable. In the case of industrial robots, the cost-benefit is comparable between the robots and the human workers, since the role of robots is simply to substitute for the human work. Also in the case of assistive robots, we can estimate the cost, comparing the robots and the labor cost of care staffs. However, the appropriate evaluation of assistive robots is difficult unless we can estimate objectively and quantitatively the contribution of them to the improvement of QOL (quality of life). Note that the benefit of the robots here is not merely the performance as an assistive equipment, but the advantageous effect on the user and the user’s life.
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