Miraculous Life

The “Miraculous Life“ project aims to develop an innovative, user-centered technical solution: the Virtual Assistant (VSP). The VSP is designed to support persons from retirement age onward in their everyday lives, affording them greater safety.

It will serve as the near-equivalent of a human helper, facilitating everyday tasks for the user by offering assistance based on its “reading” of human behavior and emotions. The human-VSP interaction is intended to resemble interpersonal communication as closely as possible.

The VSP apprehends the user’s facial expressions, voice pitch, and gestures, along with other contextual information, e. g., from the surroundings, and assembles these in an overall “picture,” on the basis of which it responds to the user’s needs. An avatar is employed in the communication with the user which empathetically reacts with emotions and differentiated speech intonation. It animates the elderly person to answer the assistant, which leads to a dialog between them. Related ICT services (e. g., carpets with fall detection) further raise the level of household safety.