Flexible, Personal Service Robot for ALS Patients

摘要

Diseases that cause motor impairment leave people dependent on the help of caregivers or new technologies for their daily tasks. Care robots could support these patients and help them gaining autonomy in some of their daily activities. In this paper, a robotic assistant is introduced based on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis patients requests for care robotics. The presented use cases are derived from their feedback and integrated using a compliant lightweight robotic arm. The system has been developed to be used independently from the input device owned by the patient, which grants an easy access to the robot without any special training. The system is flexible enough to not harm the patient for tasks that involve physical humanrobot interaction, and yet precise enough to manipulate different objects. Despite the increasing acceptance of care robots in the community nowadays, the robotic assistant is one of the few robot solutions that combines autonomous behaviors and teleoperated control.