Rehabilitation Robot FRIEND II - the General Concept and Current Implementation

Abstract

FRIEND II which is the successor of the rehabilitation robot FRIEND I is being developed at the Institute of Automation, University of Bremen, and belongs to the category 'intelligent' wheelchair mounted manipulators. Both systems are used as a personal assistant to support disabled persons with upper-limb impairments in daily life situations as well as in the working environment. Significant improvements are obtained with the use of smart devices, new camera systems, a humanlike robot arm with 7-joint kinematics, a new control concept -Kinematic Configuration Control, force torque sensor and two interchangeable grippers. This paper describes the hardware selection and the innovations in the hardware of the system FRIEND II currently under development.

Applications of a Fluidic Artificial Hand in the Field of Rehabilitation

“…To achieve this goal, a range of new technical solutions is introduced. Keywords for the new technology are: manipulative as well as sensory redundancy, shared autonomy, smart devices, and ambient intelligence [Volosyak et al, 2005]. Figure 18 presents the concept of an "intelligent kitchen".…”

“…Speech recognition also is among these devices. An important requirement for the selection of the user interface is the general control philosophy "shared autonomy" which will be used in FRIEND-II [Volosyak et al, 2005]. Shared autonomy means that the robot acts autonomously at any possible time.…”

Mode Switch Assistance To Maximize Human Intent Disambiguation

“…Shared-control assistance paradigms help to offload cognitive and physical burden [24] without requiring the user to relinquish complete control, and are usually preferred over fully autonomous assistive robotic systems for reasons of both robustness and user satisfaction. Often, shared-control systems require an estimate of the human's intent-their intended task, goal or motion, for example.…”

Kinematic performance enhancement of wheelchair-mounted robotic arm by adding a linear drive

“…FRIEND I, the previous version of Friend II, has a BrainComputer Interface that is able to read signals through encephalography, so the user would be able to perform actions without using hands [13].…”

“…A 7DoF manipulator, FRIEND II has been developed in 2007 by the Automation Institute of University of Bremen [13]. FRIEND I, the previous version of Friend II, has a BrainComputer Interface that is able to read signals through encephalography, so the user would be able to perform actions without using hands [13].…”