Abstract
In a society with fewer children and aging population, it is not rare case that an aged person cares another more aged person. In such a situation, transfer motion from a bed to a wheel chair, and so on, is a very hard work for the caregiver and it may lead to a serious damage at the worst case. Robot technologies, e.g. power assist systems, are expected to be introduced to a field of nursing care. Robots for the nursing care are kinds of human-friendly system. Therefore, it will be needed to fill many safety policies that are stricter than for any other conventional systems. Final goal of our study is to realize safe and human-friendly power assist system for transfer motion. In this report, we propose a power assist system using ER clutch. Using clutch type mechanism makes the system more safety because a speed and a torque of the actuator are restricted automatically. The ER clutch has good performance of toque response and it makes the system more controllable. Up-down motions with 8kgf-weight were examined using the developed system. The results show that this system can realize safe and stable responses with operator's motions.
