A Study of An Upper-Limb Power-Assist Exoskeleton Robot With Perception-Assist Considering User's Task

Abstract

Many power-assist robots have been developed to assist the rehabilitation and daily motion of the physically weak persons. The environmental perception ability of the physically weak persons is sometimes deteriorated also, so the concept of perception-assist has been proposed to assist user to avoid dangerous motion if it is necessary. In this study, a virtual tunnel is defined in the perception-assist for the user's upper-limb motion and the modification force is applied to user's hand when a tool grasped by the hand is out of the virtual tunnel. The intended task of user is estimated by the motion and the tool grasped by the hand such as spoon, fork, and so on. In this paper, the perception-assist which defines a flexible shape of virtual tunnel in accordance with the intended task is proposed to assist the task of physically persons with an upper-limb power-assist exoskeleton robot. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated by experiments.