Standing, Walking, and Sitting Support Robot Based on User State Estimation Using a Small Number of Sensors
Standing, Walking, and Sitting Support Robot Based on User State Estimation Using a Small Number of Sensors
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DOI：
10.1109/access.2021.3127275
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发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Mizuki Takeda;Kaiji Sato;Y. Hirata;Takahiro Katayama;Yasuhide Mizuta;Atsushi Koujina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mizuki Takeda;Kaiji Sato;Y. Hirata;Takahiro Katayama;Yasuhide Mizuta;Atsushi Koujina
随着人口老龄化和随之而来的照顾者严重短缺，帮助老年人的护理机器人的需求正在增加。然而，由于成本限制和几个因素造成的焦虑问题，护理机器人尚未被广泛采用。例如，护理机器人被要求具有比普通护理设备更高的功能。为用户状态提供强大的功能和适当的支持是很重要的。然而，这需要更多的传感器来获取用户状态估计的详细信息，并需要更多的执行器来提供物理支持，从而增加了成本和故障风险。在一个有许多传感器并基于详细数据运行的系统中，用户隐私问题也会出现。个人信息泄露的风险和被监控的感觉增加了用户的不适感。为了在行走过程中支持站立和防止摔倒，护理机器人需要根据用户的状态向用户供电。重心位置已被用于这种状态估计，然而，需要许多传感器来确定准确的重心位置。为了减少用户状态估计所需的传感器数量，提出了一种计算候选节点的方法，并通过实验对该方法进行了验证。以前的研究只关注正常的站立动作。然而，在日常活动中，站立、行走和坐下都是一套动作。此外，看护机器人用户并不总是能够正常移动；因此，异常检测在看护机器人中是有益的。因此，估计用户状态非常重要，不仅要考虑站立运动，还要考虑行走和坐着，以及在这些运动期间可能出现的任何异常。在这项研究中，我们开发了一个基于用户状态估计的老年人支持系统，该系统可以帮助站立、行走和坐着。改进了行走和站立运动的轮齿候选计算方法，并提出了一种基于轮齿候选的异常检测方法。护理机器人被设计为用户驱动的，并根据状态估计为体力不足的人提供支持。实验证明，所开发的系统可以持续监控用户的状态，并与单个机器人一起支持站立、行走和坐下等一系列动作。
With the aging of the population and the consequent severe shortage of caregivers, the demand for care robots to assist the elderly is increasing. However, care robots have yet to be widely adopted owing to cost constraints and anxiety issues due to several factors. For instance, care robots are required to have higher functionality than general care devices. It is important to provide both massive power and the appropriate support for the user’s state. However, this requires more sensors to obtain detailed information for user-state estimation and more actuators for physical support, increasing the cost and risk of failure. In a system that has many sensors and operates based on detailed data, the problem of user privacy also emerges. The risk of personal information leakage and the feeling of being monitored increase user discomfort. To support standing up and prevent falling during walking, care robots are required to apply power to the user according to the user state. The position of the center of gravity (CoG) has been used for such state estimation; however, many sensors are required to determine the accurate CoG position. To reduce the number of sensors required for user state estimation, we proposed a method for calculating CoG candidates, and validated the proposed method via experiments. Previous studies have focused solely on normal standing-up motion. However, in daily activities, standing up, walking, and sitting down are a set of motions. In addition, it is not always true that the care robot user can move normally; hence, anomaly detection is beneficial in care robots. Therefore, it is important to estimate the user state considering not only standing-up motion, but also walking and sitting down, as well as any anomaly that may occur during these motions. In this study, we develop an elderly support system that can assist in standing, walking, and sitting based on user state estimation. The CoG candidate calculation method is improved for walking and stand-to-sit movements, and an anomaly detection method using CoG candidates is also proposed. The care robot is designed to be user-driven and provide support for persons with insufficient strength based on state estimation. The experiments verify that the developed system can constantly monitor the user’s state and support a series of movements, such as standing up, walking, and sitting down, with a single robot.