Recap: Ameca at the Kaiserslautern Senior Citizens' Fair, 11–13 September 2025

11. September 2025

On 11 September 2025, the Senior Citizens' Fair was officially opened in Kaiserslautern's Fruchthalle. One highlight was the autonomous social robot Ameca from RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau with the EMAH interaction system. A brief introduction to social human-robot interaction in the context of care was followed by a live demonstration presented by Prof. Dr. Patrick Wolf, Jakub Pawlak, Ashita Ashok and Nadezhda Kushina. The audience responded with great interest, and intense discussions ensued about the opportunities and limitations of using robots in everyday care. Of particular importance was the appeal to grow together as a society, to care for one another and, at the same time, to give nursing staff the freedom they urgently need.

During the trade fair week, from 12 to 13 September, the RRLab RPTU presented Ameca as a use case for geriatric care research. Although a local newspaper dubbed Ameca a ‘purple alien that is not yet ready for elderly care,’ the numerous interactions painted a different picture. Representatives from clinics and care facilities signalled genuine interest in this area of research, particularly in light of the shortage of staff. Special thanks go to Prof. Patrick Wolf for presenting our vision to the local authorities and to Jakub Pawlak for courageously volunteering as a ‘guinea pig’ for the body mimicking demo.

Exhibitors from Siegen: We are delighted that the team from the University of Siegen, with its extensive experience in social robots in elderly care, travelled such a long way to enrich the event with their expertise. Team University of Siegen: Mea-Sophie Edelmann, Mehrbod Manavi, Günther Tresor Tchogmakwe Yango, and Eva Theresa Jahn.

Finally, a big thank you goes to the RRLAB student team of Yu-Chi Huang, Rishika Ghosh and Hana Jeong for more than three months of dedicated work, which made these presentations possible.

Photo credits: Mehbod, Abdalla, and Hossam.

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