'Lucia' can remind elderly when to eat, rest and take pills (ANSA) - Rome, June 21 - An Italian domestic robot that reminds the elderly when to eat, rest and take their pills has garnered one of the top prizes at the world's premier robotics competition .

Lucia, the artificial home help created by the Robocare team from the National Research Council (CNR), got past hundreds of rivals at the prestigious RoboCup tournament in Bremen, Germany .

In the finals, it beat two teams to come third .

"We're really pleased with this result" said Amedeo Cesta of the CNR's Institute of Cognition Sciences and Technologies, who led the RoboCare project .

"The domestic section of the competition is much harder than the other two, sports-playing machines and rescue devices. Our robots have to recognise voices and interact with humans in a pleasing and natural way" .

"As well as being so sophisticated, Lucia is nice to look at" . Lucia was narrowly beaten by a team from the US university Carnegie Mellon .

The German team Allemaniacs took the gold medal .