\n For most older adults, their own homes is the overwhelmingly preferred environment for living and growing older. However, for those living in homes with stairs, the difficulty and risk of injury in stair ascent/descent is a major challenge in their daily life, which may endanger the feasibility of such choice. In this paper, the authors present a novel assistive device, namely RailBot, to help mobility-challenged individuals (including frail older adults) to climb stairs more easily. Unlike the traditional elevators and stair lifts, the RailBot is a highly compact device that can be easily installed in existing stairways, allowing it to benefit a large number of individuals living in homes with stairs. Further, by assisting the users' stair climbing instead of carrying them upstairs, the RailBot enables and encourages the users to maintain and enhance their stair-climbing capabilities, and thus contributes to their long-term physical health. The design details of the RailBot prototype are presented, including the system configuration, the actuation mechanism of the mobile platform, as well as the intuitive control interface for start-stop control and speed regulation. After mounting the prototype in a real-world use environment, a small-scale human study was conducted, with the results clearly demonstrating the effectiveness of the RailBot assistance through the significant reduction of lower-limb muscle activities.

RailBot: A Novel Assistive Device for Stair Climbing

Automation technology plays an increasingly major role in providing higher efficiency in almost all fields of knowledge. One of the sectors of automation is Robotics, which involves building mechanical and electronic structures that would run on computer codes. These codes with technical advancement can further be upgraded to machine learning and artificial information algorithms. Robotics has the potential to bridge the gap between the physical and the cybernetic world. The prime objective of this paper is to put forward a robot that can increase the productivity and efficiency of an operation besides minimizing the efforts, time, and labor. Alongside, the arm also ensures the safety of the operator. The paper initially discusses the basics of robots and a few significant terminologies related to them. There are diverse ways to control a robot, one of them being gesture control. The researcher proposes to build a robot that is controlled by hand gestures using the Inertial Measurement Unit sensors. Further, a discussion is also made on the mechanical design with CAD modeling, electronic systems, and code for controlling the robotic arm with sensor inputs. 

Gesture Controlled 3D-Printed Robotic Arm Using IMU Sensors

Disease mobility is curse of human life, both physically and mentally. Particularly, old age faces difficulty in walking, climbing stairs, etc. As per UN world population prospects, the elder population in worldwide will reach up to 2.1 billion in 2050 (around 20%), which is more than double the population in 2017. It is observed that the majority of infrastructures in rural, urban and semi urban areas of developing nations are not equipped with elevators. Individuals have no alternative than utilizing stairs. The fundamental issue comes with an age where an incompetent body enforces to avoid climbing of any type. Literature supports different assisting tools for stair climbing. The use of external power source for driving such tools is a common practice. In this paper, the self driven mechanism is proposed to facilitate climbing. The system stores the energy while regular walking and the same can be utilized whenever required on the need basis. The natural walking style of the individual and its feel is preserved while designing the mechanism. The design further shows scope for similar applications. The detailing of design and the analytical formulations are presented to support the argument. Keywords— Spiral Spring, Kinematics, Stair Climbing

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Spring Supportive Mechanism to Assist Stair Climbing

A high precision or surgeon skills are required in some of the precision procedures such as micro-scale minimally invasive surgeries. Robotic manipulators are being explored for carrying out surgeries with minimal invasion, outstanding precision and stability of the tool. Major challenges in developing such systems are motion of the tool with “mechanical” remote center and preserving surgical feel of the surgeon. This paper presents conceptual design of 2-DOF isosceles trapezoidal remote center motion mechanism. The proposed concepts use mechanically generated RCM. The compact and handy design helps to preserve the ‘surgical feel’. The use of compliant links over rigid link mechanism brings the precision in manipulation. Extensive, nonlinear FE analysis demonstrates the accuracy of the RCM. Further the actuation method, sensor scheme and control scheme are presented as an example case.

Rupesh S. Bobade

Papers

Spring Supportive Mechanism to Assist Stair Climbing

Compliant Remote Center Motion Mechanism for Minimally Invasive Surgical Robots