Control Design and Implementation of Robotic Massage Based on Finger Pressing Motion Analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the force information that a massage therapist acquires during treatment, the estimation of the condition of the recipient, and the laws of decision making based on this information, and to plan robotic movements based on this information. In order to reproduce expert manual therapy with a robotic arm and hand, the treatment movements and finger pressing forces were measured and analyzed. To discover characteristic movements by comparing them for each practitioner and treatment position. To elucidate the parameters necessary to design the basic finger pressing movements. Based on the analysis results, the amount of pushing and applied force during the treatment were imitated. Simulating the amount of push and force is not sufficient for the recipient. A control that feeds back the recipient's movement and applied force is necessary. The robot massages in response to the recipient's movements through repetitive control. We confirmed the improvement of target force tracking by repetitive control.