Simulation-based Design of Transfer Support Robot and Experimental Verification

The need for robotic care devices that support the movements of the elderly is increasing with demographic changes in modern societies. Such devices should be designed and controlled while considering their physical effects on users, since the devices make direct contact with the users and move their body. However, human physical burdens are difficult to evaluate for machines that undergo complex interactions with humans, and little research has focused on the care robots' effects on the human body. We have proposed a simulation-based optimization method of the design parameters, which uses a digital model of the human body. The user is represented as a link model, and the joint torques and contact forces on this model are analyzed. The motion trajectories of the device were then designed according to the simulation results. To verify this design method, we then performed an experiment with human subjects and measured the contact forces between human and device using a custom mockup of the transfer aid robot.