2018 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 158-165
An aging society is a serious problem in many developed countries. Due to this issue, there has been a significant increase in the demand for assist devices that can support human motion. This paper proposes a novel assist device, Intelligent Tension Pole (ITP), to assist in indoor activities of daily living (ADL), and it is expected to provide support for achieving self-reliance, space saving, and stability. The structure and control system of this assist device are presented. This novel assist device is based on a movable handrail, and therefore wheels are added to the lower and upper ends of the tension pole. In addition, a ball screw, which enables the ITP to move while stretching to the floor and ceiling at any time using force control, is added. In order to improve user comfort and reduce the risk of falling down of the ITP, translation and inclination controls of the ITP are applied to the wheel control. These controls are controlled independently by the mode decoupling method. Experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed device and its control system.
