Development of Meal-Assistance Robot for People with Disabilities of Upper Limbs

Abstract

Meal-assistance robots are required for people with disabilities of upper limbs because they need help with eating. However, they can not use some famous robots because they can not handle the robots using joysticks or touch sensors. Some people, who have pacemakers in the body, can also not use the robots because electromagnetic motors are included. We therefore develop a meal-assistance robot using ultrasonic motors and eye-interfaces. The features of our robot are as follows: our robot has electromagnetic compatibility because we use the ultrasonic motors, which are driven by frictional forces. Our robot is handled by using acts of user's eyes. Moreover, our robot does not vibrate so much because the arms of our robot move independently of each other. In this paper, we show the detail of our robot.