YASYT Robotics was created in July 2018 to develop programmes and applications for social robotics in healthcare and hospital environments to improve the care process and the experience of both users and workers, with high added value applications. The company works together with the robotics department of La Salle-URL in the field of Welfare Robotics to provide the robot Pepper with new functionalities. The goal is to respond to challenges and initiatives through research, to carry out state of the art studies, conceptualisation, prototyping and technological feasibility analysis.
La Salle-URL offers a welfare robotics search service to help create an ecosystem in which we can develop technological R&D activities. The aim of these activities is to analyse and face the needs, initiatives and challenges that come up with the Pepper robotics project run by YASYT. The idea is to conceptualise possible solutions and technological products that provide high social value, profitability and strategic value for the company, as well as providing knowledge about the latest trends and feasibility of technologies considered critical in the field of welfare robotics.
We are currently working with Pepper in four areas: children, the elderly, mental health and therapeutic education. So far, specific studies have been carried out to reduce anxiety about operations in children (pre- and post-operative paediatrics, scans), space-time orientation in people with dementia and cognitive stimulation in people with special needs and the elderly. This project is still in the development phase and will analyse various improvements to Pepper as it still has limitations in its interactions with humans; this will make it a much more powerful therapeutic education tool.
From left to right, José Luis Infiesta, Raquel Ros, Marc Espona, Juan Manuel Acevedo and Núria Infiesta
The team at YASYT and La Salle-URL is highly specialised and has experience in the field of Welfare Robotics. It is led by Raquel Ros, Researcher in Robotics at La Salle-URL in the area of Human-Robot Interaction; Juan Manuel Acevedo, researcher at YASYT Robotics and professor and researcher at La Salle-URL; Marc Espona, multimedia engineer and researcher at La Salle-URL and developer at YASYT Robotics; José Luis Infiesta, CEO & Founder of YASYT Robotics; and Nuria Infiesta, COO & Founder of YASYT Robotics.
The robot Pepper from the Pepper-Health project will be taking part on 16 December in the charity gala La Marató de TV3 to explain how it can help in different health issues. During the programme, it will make several appearances, explaining diagnosis and treatment techniques.