Design, construction and testing of a wheelchair-mounted robotic arm

Abstract

A wheelchair-mounted robotic arm (WMRA) was designed and built to meet the needs of mobility-impaired persons, and to exceed the capabilities of current devices of this type. The mechanical design incorporates DC servo drive, with all actuator hardware at each individual joint, allowing reconfigurable link lengths. It has seven principal degrees of freedom and uses a side mount on a power wheelchair. A simple, scalable control system allows coordinated Cartesian control, and offers expandability for future research, such as coordinated motion with the wheelchair itself. Design payload including gripper is 6 kg, and the total arm mass with controller is 14 kg. These and other design attributes were confirmed through testing on the completed prototype. This paper discusses the current state of the art in WMRAs; describes the design goals and user requirements for this device; explains the component selection process; discusses details of the mechanical design, electrical system and low-level controller; covers manufacturing concerns; and describes the testing of the completed arm. Suggestions for further development are also included.

A 9-DoF Wheelchair-Mounted Robotic Arm System: Design, Control, Brain-Computer Interfacing, and Testing

“…The goal was to produce an arm that has better manipulability, greater payload, and easier control than current designs. As found in previous research (Edwards et al, 2006), side mounting is preferable overall because it provides the best balance between manipulability and unobtrusiveness. This mounting location allows the arm to be stowed by folding it back and then wrapping the forearm behind the seat.…”

Laser-assisted telerobotic control for enhancing manipulation capabilities of persons with disabilities

“…Our future work will include integrating vision algorithms to enable grasping the targets from multiple angles. Also, we intend to implement the laser-assisted telerobotic control concept on a wheelchair mounted robotic arm (WMRA) [16].…”

Learning motion primitives from demonstration

“…The WMRA is a kind of assistive robot which can enhance the manipulation capabilities of the elders and the disabled and reduce dependence on human aids. 1,2,23,24 The concept of WMRA 4 comes from the fact that more and more disabled people and older people resulted by the aging society have difficulty in carrying out ADLs and wish to enhance their manipulation ability with some assistive devices. Just as its name implies, the WMRA is a robotic solution which contains an electrical wheelchair fixed with a lightweight robotic arm, different kinds of sensors, and the corresponding control system.…”