Assistive Robots – Interactive Butler to Exoskeleton

Recent United Nations world population projections show that seven out of eight newborns would survive to age 80 plus by 2050. With such statistics, it is easy to imagine how a society mostly of eighty year olds would function. Would a vulnerable eighty year old person be able to take care of or still enjoy that cognitive and physical condition to interact, serve or carry an equally ailing eighty-year old partner or for that matter someone younger in a household environment?

With that in mind, some research institutes are developing assistive robots that could improve the quality of life of the ageing and physically challenged. This includes, the Robotic Systems department at the Fraunhofer Institute IPA in Stuttgart, and the Dept. of Neuro-informatics and Cognitive Robotics of the Technical University of Ilmenau, both in Germany; Essex Robotics at the University of Essex in the UK, and the Bionics Lab at UC Santa Cruz in the US, just to mention a few.

Care-O-bot® 3 – Fraunhofer IPA

Fraunhofer Institute for manufacturing engineering and auomation IPA has developed Care-O-bot 3, a mobile robot to serve as an interactive butler in typical household terrains.

Care-O-bot 3 is equally able to navigate safely among people and objects to grasp household objects to ease the daily chores of physically challenged people.

Equipped with omnidirectional platform, four steering and driven wheels, arms with seven degrees of freedom as well as a three-finger hand, Care-O-bot 3 can be termed as a highly flexible assistive robot.

With the inbuilt tactile sensors in the fingers, Care-O-bot 3 is able to adjust the grasping force, perception, i.e. detects movements in its environment to interact appropriately with people and objects.

RoboChair – University of Essex

Researchers at Essex Robotics are working on an intelligent RoboChair to assist the elderly and physically challenged to improve their quality of life. One of the challenges is how to construct a low-cost and yet high performing RoboChair that eases its way in challenging environments to bring the occupants to their destinations. Improving the quality of life means the RoboChair must be user-friendly.

Ultimately, it is equipped with man-machine interface to heighten its ability to avoid collisions and plan paths. Despite being equipped with new vision and wireless communication systems, the occupant monitors and operates RoboChair with a joystick and a computer screen when necessary or before a problem occurs.

Exoskeleton Prototype 3 EXO-UL7: BIONICS Lab

Upper-Limb Exoskeleton Prototype 3 EXO-UL7 is a name that will scare many off, but its usefulness is something that will be much desired not only in terms of its assisting and amplifying movements generated by healthy peoples, but also in assisting disabled people with neuromuscular diseases and injuries to the central nervous system.

The prototype is moved by electric motors which provide the power to feed extra physical strength back to the operator. As an assistive device, the Exoskeleton will be worn by the human and functions as a human-amplifier. Since the joints of the Exoskeleton correspond to those of the human body, it shares a portion of the external load to improve the quality of movement and the lives of disabled persons. Many would be looking forward to the release of these assistive devices.

TOOMAS – Technical University Ilmenau

The Department of Neuroinformatics and Cognitive Robotics at the Technical University of Ilmenau has developed TOOMAS, an interactive service mobile robot, as part of the Serrokon-D project, with lifelong learning capabilities in perception and behavioural control to work as shopping assistants and home robots to care for customers as well as stimulate the cognitive ability and therapy management of demented elderly and patients. Very flexible in its construction, TOOMAS can be reconfigured for a variety of application domains.

Visit EXPO21XX’s ROBOTICS 21XX online exhibition to see more exciting developments in robotics research.

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