Development of a welfare machine with pneumatic actuator (1st report) - Lifting machine using parallel mechanism

It is estimated that twenty five percent of Japanese population will be eld erly people over sixty-five in the year 2020. Under the present conditions, the development of a welfare machine is desired to assist a physically han dicapped; person and a person of advanced age. Those machines, which are de veloped at the present, are usually a large system and occasionally difficu lt to manipulate them. The purpose of this study is to develop a compact, l ightweight, multi-functions, easy manipulation and human-friendly welfare m achine. The system consists of a lifting and transferring part. The lifting part was developed by using two 3-DOF (degree of freedom) parallel robots, which are driven by pneumatic actuators. In this paper, it was proved by t hese experimental results (position control, force control, cooperative con trol) that this system has a good potency in the welfare practical applicat ion.