One of the problems facing long-term care of people with developmental disabilities is staffing.
DDA has always been an innovator the field of support and advocacy and sees the solution in care as being technological in nature. For a few years now we have been working with Jon Morris and JDQ Systems Inc. to develop a robotic assistant. This is Aether version 2.0. Earlier iterations of Aether were much smaller and not as engaging.
The idea is not to replace people, but to have an extra set of eyes that can roam around a group home and identify problems or issues such as a wet floor or if someone has fallen and needs assistance. As development moves forward ‘Aether’ would become more interactive, recognize staff and clients and even assist with medication scheduling and more. Aether can also perform various voice-activated skills, involving autonomous navigation, face and pose detection, and entertainment.
Aether uses virtual reality programing to move around. JDQ Systems builds a virtual roadmap of the floor plans to our group homes so Aether can easily move from room to room.
We are really excited about the development and hope to implement Aether in the very near future.
