Abstract: Care Robotics are an essential part of aged-care technology and important supplement of nursing staff. They integrate multi-disciplinary technological innovations such as artificial intelligence and robotics. It is not only a key industry for the aging society, but may even form emerging industries. This paper chooses the technical landscape framework constructed by Aharonson et al., and adapts the indicators describing the technical landscape to the needs of the comparative research on the paths of developing Chinese and Japanese Care Robotics. Through the overall development trends and the overall structural characteristics, the paper describes the Care Robotics technology landscapes in China and Japan, then analyzes differences of paths of research and development between them, and provides decision-making basis for the sustainable development of Chinese Care Robotics. The analysis shows that there are significant differences in the paths of researching and developing Chinese and Japanese Care Robotics. The research and development of Japanese Care Robotic technology, which is mainly enterprise-oriented, considering related fields of mechanical hands as the core fields. Different Japanese organizations choose different subjects under different paths of researching and developing; Chinese organizations conducting research and development of Chinese Care Robotic technology are mainly universities, considering mechanical hands and robots with special grounding mobile devices as common technical fields. Different Chinese organizations show obvious similarity in terms of research fields. Control systems of Robots are possible fields for future research and deveopment in China. The suggestions for Chinese Care Robotics include: focusing on developing mechanical hands and grounding mobile devices; improving cooperation with industrial enterprises and focusing on researching and developing local and patented sensors of Chinese Care Robotics; improving cooperation of research between universities and enterprises or industrial parks of robotics in China.

Key words: Technological Landscape, Care Robotics, Patent Analysis