Development of Transfer-Assisting Robot System Using Posture-Supporting Wear and Support Robot

Abstract

When assisting a care receiver to transfer from one plane to another, a caregiver needs to hold up and move him/her. As a caregiver has to support the weight of one person, transfer assistance imposes a heavy physical burden on the caregiver. Particularly, in Japan, with an increasing elderly population and a decreasing young population, there are a few caregivers to assist numerous care receivers to transfer. In this scenario, it is an extremely vital issue to develop methods to reduce the burden of the caregivers when assisting care receivers to transfer. In this study, by focusing on the clothes that care receivers wear, we developed a transfer-assisting robot system by combining a dedicated posture-supporting wear and a mobile robot based on a lift mechanism.