Roberto Bolli
We are designing a robot to assist elderly people by providing a handle to grab on to during sit-to-stand transitions and while walking. Conceptually, the robot will consist of a robotic arm attached to an omnidirectional base. The end of the robotic arm will be outfitted with an ADA-compliant handle.
For a proof-of-concept, we attached a UR10e robot to a Mecanum wheel drive base. The base can simultaneously translate and rotate in any direction, giving the robot a high degree of mobility. The handle endpoint and robot motion can be controlled via joystick or a computer script. As a test, we mounted pressure sensors onto the handle to perform basic compliance control.
