Development of a general purpose robot arm for use by disabled and elderly at home

Robots to assist disabled persons is a challenging area that include most aspects as demanding tasks, partly unstructured environment and to some extent autonomous behavior. The on-going MATS project focuses on a robot system that meet requirements on performing domestic tasks within environments as kitchen, bathroom and living room. The system has mobility within a home environment by moving along walls to different fixed locations by using a docking system. The mobility is further improved by a docking station that attach the arm to a wheelchair allowing freedom to use the robot in a more flexible way than most other robot systems. Within the development process, the usefulness is in the center and user scenarios produced using robot simulation tools is used as a communication tool to functional and technical specifications. Such simulations have provided invaluable information in a conceptual phase to set early specifications on dimensions and tasks to perform. This paper will present the on-going development of the robot system that during the first phase has been based on simulation studies together with prototype mock-ups of sub-systems. Results from this work indicate a successful continuation and final completion of the robot system.