Abstract
In order to develop a test method for a manipulator equipped on the service robot to assess safety of a person under such conditions that a part of his/her body is mechanically compressed at a joint or between frames of the manipulator, this study clarifies compression situations in various physical interactions between the manipulator and the person, in which the limits of tolerance for superficial somatic pain that persons feel against the mechanical pressurization can be applied as a criterion to discriminate risk-free contact from the hazardous interactions, and discusses fundamental requirements for an engineering means to measure physical quantities representing the degree of compression of body part from a view point of non-linear elastic characteristics of the soft tissues around the bone.
