Robotic Patient Transfer and Rehabilitation Device for Patient Care Facilities or the Home

This paper describes a novel Home Lift, Position and Rehabilitation (HLPR) Chair, designed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to provide independent patient mobility for indoor tasks, such as moving to and placing a person on a toilet or bed, and lift assistance for tasks, such as accessing kitchen or other tall shelves. These functionalities are currently out of reach of most wheelchair users. One of the design motivations of the HLPR Chair is to reduce back injury, typically an important issue in the care of this group. The HLPR Chair is currently being extended to be an autonomous mobility device to assist cognition by route and trajectory planning. This paper describes the design of HLPR Chair, its control architecture, and algorithms for autonomous planning and control using its unique kinematics. Also included here is a description of the plan, simulation results and sensor performance measurements completed in preparation for an autonomous HLPR Chair demonstration, as well as the recent modifications to advance the HLPR Chair toward a commercial system.