GeckoSystems to resume in home personal companion robot trials after Holidays

Jan 4 2010

GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO) (http://www.geckosystems.com/) announced today that they have resumed their in home personal companion robot trials for elder care after pausing during the Holidays. GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging Mobile Service Robot (MSR) industry revolutionizing their development and usage with "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service™."

"Practical, cost effective mobile robot solutions have been our primary goal for over twelve years. We are very pleased to resume our in home trials of this new assistive care home appliance, the CareBot™. It is a customizable personal companion robot with telepresence capabilities. During the coming months we expect to continue to confirm important care giving benefits for the elderly and their family's members. Our long held belief is that personal companion mobile robots, like the CareBot, can help tens of thousands of families take better care of their loved ones while saving significant monies is becoming a reality," remarked Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.

"We are pleased to report that all subsystems and systems tested to date in these home trials have functioned as well, if not better than, expected," reflected Mark Peele, Vice President, R&D.

While personal robots cannot reliably sense and respond to human emotions, there are many different means available to the end user. The CareBot's persona can be easily customized as to voice tonality, cadence, pitch, breathiness, volume, choice of words, etc. Further, the words and/or phrases chosen in response to anticipated questions to the CareBot can be colloquial in the word choice and approximate the native dialect using various user settings in the software and/or hardware. With the foregoing capabilities there is now a new type of surrogate companion, not only for the elderly, but also other family members such as children and/or the chronically ill.

"GeckoChat continues the suite of our fundamental GeckoSavants™ with the disparate, functional benefits needed to cost effectively provide utility to families for remote care taking of their members and other loved ones. This type of beneficial artificial intelligence (AI) makes the CareBot more personal and uniquely adapted and addressed to the particular person to be assisted. Not only does this capability enable new forms of social interaction and community for families -- even when dispersed geographically -- it will also increase ROI for our investors," remarked Spencer.

Like an automobile, mobile robots are made from steel, aluminum, plastic, and electronics, but with ten to twenty times the amount of software running. The CareBot has an aluminum frame, plastic shroud, two independently driven wheels, multiple sensor systems, microprocessors and several onboard computers connected in a local area network (LAN). The microprocessors directly interact with the sensor systems and transmit data to the onboard computers. The onboard computers each run independent, highly specialized cooperative/subsumptive artificial intelligence software programs, GeckoSavants™, which interact to complete tasks in a timely, intelligent and common sense manner. GeckoNav™, GeckoChat™ and GeckoTrak™ are primary GeckoSavants. GeckoNav is responsible for all fully autonomous maneuvering, such as avoiding dynamic and/or static obstacles, running errands and patrolling. GeckoChat is responsible for interaction with the care-receiver such as answering questions, assisting with daily routines and reminders, and responding to other verbal commands. GeckoTrak, which is mostly transparent to the user, enables the CareBot to maintain proximity to the care receiver using sensor fusion. The CareBot is an internet appliance that is accessible for remote video/audio monitoring and telepresence.

"We continue to look forward to further exploration and understanding of the social interaction between the family, CareBot, and care receiver in the coming weeks and months of these in home assistive care robot trials. With these world's first home personal robot trials progressing nicely, we have already learned a great deal as to the reality of beneficial social interaction between human and robot in domestic settings. There seems to be a very important positive -- and unforeseen by some parties -- impact of valued family behaviors for all members in using a CareBot to communicate their thoughts and feelings to their beloved family members," concluded Spencer.