Design and path planning of Massagebot: One massaging robot climbing along the acupuncture points

Abstract

This paper describes a 2 DOF (Degrees of Freedom) massaging robot prototype: Massagebot, which is equipped with two kinds of massage structure and can realize two kinds of massage by scratching and shaking on user's back. Massagebot has two-wheel gripper, and two-triangular structure of body with good stability. In terms of path planning, we proposed a location algorithm based on simplified acupuncture points, where the SOM (Self-organizing Feature Map) neural networks, image processing and pattern recognition are combined together. In one hand, an innovative idea was proposed that using SOM neural network to cluster and simplify acupuncture points to several classes. In the other hand, there is an acupuncture point recognition algorithm presented in path planning.