Development of a robot arm controlled by force sensors as a walking aid for elderly

Abstract

This paper presents a prototype development of a robot arm to assist walking of elderly people. For effective use in Japanese houses, a robot arm mounted on a rail was designed. Force sensors were used to provide an easy-to-use interface. Thresholds of forces were determined to detect the user's intention to walk as well as for safety considerations. Applying a step by step motion, the arm could follow the rhythmical walking of the subject. We examined an interface method using force sensors and concluded that it can detect the user's motion at the beginning of a walk.

Active synchronized motion control for comfortable walking support

“…The representative examples for active walkers are Walking Helper [3], SmartCane & SmartWalker [4][5][6], Care-o-Bot TM [7], and PAM-AID [8] whereas those for passive walkers are RT-Walker [9] and KineAssist [10] etc. Rail based arm proposed by Suzuki et al [1] and SpiderBot-II [11] proposed by authors can be termed as walking assistants.…”

Safe physical human–robot interaction of mobility assistance robots: evaluation index and control

“…do not comply with the varying grades of disabilities among elderly. 3 Robotics technology has the potential to provide flexible assistive systems to enable them independent living, provided the user's safety is guaranteed. The safety requirement implies that the robot should not harm the user in any situation.…”

“…Due to physical attachment, the previous safety indices (such as Gadd Severity Index (GSI), 8 Head Injury Criterion (HIC), 9 safe impact potential by Heinzmann and Zelinsky (2003) 4 and a generalised danger index by Ikuta et al (2003) 10 ) and safety strategies, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] basically developed for manipulation assistance robots, are not applicable to mobility assistance robots (such as wheeled walkers (Care-O-bot, 6 Smart walkers, 27 Walking helper, 28 RT-Walker 30 and PAMAID 31 ), installed-walkers (Rail-based arm 3 and SpiderBot-II 20 ), sit-to-stand assistance robot (e.g. gravitybalanced assistive device 32 ) and rehabilitation robot (e.g.…”