A Study on the Enchancement of Manipulation Performance of Wheelchair-Mounted Rehabilitation Service Robot

Abstract

A wheelchair-mounted reha- bilitation service robot called KARES (KAist Rehabilitation Engineering Service system) has been realized to as- sist the disabled / the elderly. One of the most important factors to be considered in the design of this system is to enhance reliability so that the disabled / the eld- erly can use with feelings of safety and confidence. For enhancing the reliabil- ity, it is suggested that autonomous ma- nipulation and manual manipulation be integrated in a proper manner. The basic autonomous tasks for KARES are grasping an object on the table, grasping an object on the floor, and manipulating a switch on the wall. For manual ma- nipulation of the disabled / the elderly, a 3D input device called SPACEBALL 2003 is used and an auxiliary device is designed for the disabled to facilitate rotational input function. Using this auxiliary device and SPACEBALL 2003, the disabled / the elderly are able to make a manual adjustment during the autonomous task. Integration of autonomous and manual operation proves to be robust and reliable. The performance of the system is verified by experiment.