Abstract
Recently, the number of elders who need care have increased and consequently the overload of caretakers has increased. Therefore, development of assist device is desired from caretakers. We designed an assist device that mimics upper limbs using rubber artificial muscle to help caretakers take up and take down patients or elders. This device is controlled by weak forces of caretakers' hands and driven with pneumatic artificial rubber muscle to be safe when people strike the arm of the device. In this paper, we describe characteristics of pneumatic artificial rubber muscle, controller design, simulation for controlling the two link-arm, and experiment for motion of the link-arm.
