Abstract
With aging, human skin develops a dry condition called senile xerosis. The skin lesion can be prevented by daily skin care, for example, by applying an ointment containing moisturing factors several times in a day. Aged persons, however, have difficulties in accessing their back and rely therefore on nursing care for such treatment. But note that in underpopulated areas such nursing care may not always be available. To tackle this problem, a skincare robot has been proposed and developed. In this paper, the feasibility of the project is confirmed by real experiments, applying ointment to a human's back. The system developed recognizes the shape of the body, plans the motion path of the end-effector, and executes the task without applysing any excessive forces.
