Nobody can feel the value of independence as the handicapped people. They can be wary of taking assistance from others. Not only lifting heavy items but basic activities like holding a glass of drinking water, turning on or off switches, and more activities can be beyond them. This doesn’t only frustrate them but also affects their self-confidence.
Robotic arms can help to solve this problem. While humanoid robots can fulfill the above-mentioned tasks, a robotic arm design directly facilitates people to perform such regular activities. This is not only cost-effective but also a great tool to boost self-reliance.
Change in Robotic Arm Design:
- Earlier Day’s Design
In robotic designs, none can emphasize the importance of setting transparent, practical, and well-defined goals in mind right from the beginning to the end.
Modern roboticists, however, noted that the majority of the earlier designs didn’t work in accordance with this principle. Instead, it seems that most designers tried to make the robotic arm design flexible enough so that it can anyhow achieve the required tasks, only to realize its limitations.
The reason for such failures is obvious and easy to analyze. The goal tasks include motion - acceleration, velocity, and position; along with the environment and object of the robot manipulation. Naturally, without well-defined tasks, vague assumptions dominated the subsequent designs of joints, links, kinematic parameters, transmissions, actuators, sensors, power supplies, control schemes, etc. As a result, the end products couldn’t guarantee success and redesigns came to be inevitable.
- Latest Approach - Task Oriented Design (TOD)
The roboticists noted that without a task-oriented approach, a robot design tends to demand an unnecessarily large amount of iteration, consuming significant amount of cost, effort, and time.
The basic philosophy of the Task Oriented Designs (TOD) is to execute at least a certain range of tasks with high priority. This assurance becomes even more crucial once it comes to designing a programmable robot arm for helping handicapped people.
Brief Overview of TOD procedure
Before designing such a robotic arm, the scientists have drawn a set of target tasks form the daily life of physically challenged people. This step, though the basis of the subsequent steps, was mostly ignored in the earlier day’s designing approach.
To ensure the quality and high functionality of the robotic arm, the roboticists spent over 6 months in Korea. They observed the daily lifestyle of the C4 and C5 injured people in the National Rehabilitation Center (NRC) in Seoul, Korea. They also conducted multiple interview sessions with the patients and their physicians to get a deeper insight.
Based upon their research, the scientists concluded that they need to design a robotic hand that is capable to perform the following 12 tasks:
1. Serving a meal
2. Cleansing face
3. Shaving
4. Picking up an object
5. Turning on or off switches
6. Opening or closing doors
7. Serving a beverage
8. Making tea
9. Pulling drawers
10. Playing games
11. Handling thin, delicate things like paper
Depending on this analysis, they focused on designing a robotic hand that can quantify these tasks.
Conclusion:
We hope the working range of the robotic hands will further expand and impart greater independence to the handicapped people in near future.
To learn more about advanced robotic arm design, feel free to reach Custom Entertainment Solutions. Call 01.801.410.4869.
