Lead by Professor Goran Djordjevic, Center for Robotics at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering in the Serbian Southern city of Nis researchers have completed the creation of a care robot that would soon be used in Chinese nursing homes. The first public demonstration of the robot was presented to the media earlier this month.
Professor Djordjevic has pointed out that the robot developed in Nis is six times cheaper then elsewhere in the world.
"We have proven that a robot can be made for 1,500 euros and it works well. Similar robots on the market cost at least 10,000 euros," Djordjevic said, adding that the robot was designed to replace carers in big nursing homes in China.
"The robot we have developed can replace people doing simple jobs such as bringing medicines and pressure measuring devices."
He said the robots would significantly save the time of carers which they could dedicate for the better use.
Professor Djordjevic, Photo Sasha Djordjveic, Beta
Professor Goran Djordjevic said Chinese companies are interested in manufacturing a robot developed by researches in Nis in large series, and negotiations are under the way with the Chinese company that has also funded this project.
Care robots are part of a big bet China’s making on robots. The country is already the world’s largest producer of industrial robots and the largest buyer of robots in the world. China’s factories spent more than $3 billion on industrial robots in 2015, according to the International Federation of Robotics and Bernstein Research.
China needs robots to care for its large, and growing, elderly population—it’s home to a quarter of the world’s seniors—because it can hardly rely on the one-child generation. As fewer Chinese are able to care for their aging parents, the number of retirement homes nationwide is mushrooming.
