Abstract
In Japan, at present the number of severely crippled and bedridden patients who have to be completely taken care of in daily life is tending to increase for several reasons, and in addition proportion of aged persons in the population is growing.
Providing care for these persons is becoming an extremely serious social and economic problem.
In order to reduce burdens imposed upon the handicapped persons and those responsible for their care and nursing, we have undertaken research upon the development of a four wheel mobile robot system to provide assistance in the daily activities of bedridden handicapped persons.
The characteristics of this system are (1) front wheel power steering and independently directly driven rear wheels, (2) one pair of manipulators which have nine degree of freedom mounted on the four wheel mobile device, (3) a hierarchical control system with one 16 bit and several 8 bit microcomputers, and we utilize a teaching-playback method to develop control programs for specific activities.
As a result of our research and development, we have succeeded in establishing fundamental techniques for mobile robot systems for bedridden patients.
