Robot Arm with Pneumatic Muscles and Joint Locks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional nursing care devices face issues with poor operability, weight, and usability due to the need for manual operations and limited flexibility, making them inefficient and unsuitable for general household use.
Innovation Solution
A robot with a base unit, body unit, and robot arm equipped with joint lock mechanisms and actuators that allow for flexible positioning and lifting of heavy objects, featuring a waist joint mechanism for shifting and pneumatic artificial muscles for actuation, enabling intuitive operation and high power in a lightweight structure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If an actuator such as a motor is added to provide automatic operations, then work efficiency is improved, but the device becomes bulky and heavier
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional electric motors with pneumatic artificial muscles as the actuation system. These pneumatic muscles are significantly lighter than conventional motors while still providing the necessary force for automatic operations, thus resolving the contradiction between work efficiency and device weight.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the fundamental parameter of the actuator from electric motor to pneumatic artificial muscle, altering the weight-to-power ratio. This parameter change enables automatic operations without the bulk and weight associated with traditional motors, achieving both improved productivity and reduced device mass.
2Device complexity
If the position of a care giver is limited to a chair of the device, then structural simplicity is maintained, but usability deteriorates due to inability to move hands freely
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a movable platform that allows the care giver's hands to be dynamically repositioned during the lift-up operation. The platform can move between a first position during lifting and a second position for other operations, providing operational flexibility without permanently complicating the overall device structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The device is segmented into functional modules including a movable platform that can be independently controlled. This segmentation allows the platform to provide hand freedom during specific operations while maintaining overall structural simplicity, as the platform is an add-on module rather than an integrated complex system.
3Device complexity
If manual operations are required, then device simplicity is maintained, but operability deteriorates causing degradation of work efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The robot system performs self-service through automatic operation modes where the pneumatic artificial muscles autonomously execute lift-up tasks without continuous manual intervention. The system can automatically adjust platform position and arm movements, providing high operability while maintaining relative simplicity through automated control rather than complex mechanical systems.
Data Source
AI summary
A robot arm provided with a body unit shifting mechanism that connects a base unit and a body unit so as to be relatively shifted, and joint lock mechanisms that are capable of mechanically securing respective joints is disposed on the body unit, and a robot operation control unit controls to switch between a robot arm operation mode in which the robot arm is operated with one of the joints of the robot arm brought into a free state, and a body unit shift mode in which the body unit is shifted with the joint being brought into a locked state.