21309 Control of iArm using RT-Middleware to develop robots which can support human daily tasks

Abstract

We are developing a manipulator system in order to support disabled people with less muscle strength such as muscular dystrophy patients. Such a manipulator should have an easy interface for the users to control it. We are developing a user interface part of the system. A single switch is introduced as the input device for the manual control of the robot arm in our interface. The scanning menu panel is designed to perform various actions of the robot arm with the single switch. In this paper, we report the development of RT-Component of iArm which is a commercial manipulator to support disabled persons' daily life to evaluate our interface's efficiency. The demonstration that the user interface and the iArm components are connected and controlled is shown.