Evaluations of human physical burdens when using transfer aid robotic system

Abstract

A simple self-transfer aid robotic system is proposed, and the evaluations on the human's physical burdens when using a transfer aid robotic system are presented in this paper. A person with weak leg muscles who uses a wheel chair is assumed to be the target user. By using the self-transfer aid robotic system, a user can transfer between a wheel chair and a toilet, for example. The proposed self-transfer aid robotic system is a two DOF system of a single link robotic arm with a saddle on the top, and a horizontal rotation mechanism driven manually. A user puts his/her belly on the saddle of the robotic arm, and then the robotic arm lifts the user's body. After rotating the user's body, the robotic arm lowers the user's body. The experiments on the measurements of the burden to human were conducted to design a simple self-transfer aid robotic system.