Study on a practical robotic follower to support daily life — Development of a mobile robot with “Hyper-Tether” for Home Oxygen Therapy patients

In this paper, we propose a practical robotic follower adopting “Hyper-Tether” concept for detecting a foregoing person to support daily life for a patient with Home Oxygen Therapy. We developed two prototypes of the robotic follower. First we set its design specification and evaluate it by prototype model I in terms of the performance of the following. Next we investigate a chassis mechanism and its configuration based on a design of a planetary exploration rover to increase its mobility on a sidewalk in an outdoor environment. We develop the prototype model II and demonstrated that the robot had sufficient capability to move on sidewalks in the real environment.