The United States population is older than ever. Today, the median age in the country is 38.9, which is almost a decade older than in 1980, and the number of adults older than 65 has a balloon from 58 million to 82 million to 2050. The challenge related to the care of the elderly, among the deficiencies of care care, growing health care costs and the evolution of family structures, is an increasingly polite social problem.
To support solve the challenge for Eldercare, the MIT engineers team is looking for robotics. They built and tested the work of supporting the elderly or E-BAR, a mobile robot designed for physical support of the elderly and preventing them from falling while moving around their homes.
E-BAR acts as a set of robotic steering wheel that follows the person from the back. The user can walk independently or rely on the robot’s shoulders for support. The robot can support the full importance of a person, raising them from sitting to standing and vice versa along the natural trajectory. And the robot’s arms can catch them, quickly spilling the side airbags if they begin to fall.
Thanks to their project, scientists hope to prevent falls, which today is the main cause of injuries in adults who are 65 years elderly and older.
“Many older adults underestimate the risk of falling and refusing to use physical assistance, which are burdensome, while others overestimate the risk and may not exercise, which leads to decreasing mobility,” says Harry Assad, professor of Ford engineering in myth. “Our design concept is to provide older adult impairment from robotic steering wheel to stabilize your body. The steering wheel goes anywhere and provides support at any time as they need.”
In the current version, the robot is operated with a remote control. In future iterations, the team plans to automate most of the Bot functions, enabling them to autonomously follow and physically support the user. Scientists are also working on improving the device so that it is slim and more manoeuvrable in compact spaces.
“I think Eldercare is another great challenge,” says E-Bar designer Roberto Bolli, a graduate of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. “All demographic trends indicate a deficiency of guardians, a surplus of the elderly and a strong desire to get older people to aging on the spot. We consider this to be an unexplored border in America, but also an inseparable challenge for robotics.”
Bolli and Assad will present an article describing the E-BAR project at the IEEE conference on robotics and automation (ICRA) this month.
The Assad group in myth develops various technologies and robots to support the elderly. In recent years, others have developed autumn forecast algorithms, designed robots and automated devices, including walkers, to wear, self -proclaimed airbags and robotic frames that protect a person with a person and move with them while walking.
When designing E-BAR, Assad and Bolli, they sought a robot, which basically performs three tasks: providing physical support, preventing falls and safely and discreetly moving with a person. What’s more, they wanted to get rid of all the harness to provide the user with greater independence and mobility.
“Older people do not like to wear harnesses or support devices for the most part,” says Bolli. “The idea of the E-BAR structure is that it provides body weight support, active help in running and catching a fall, and at the same time completely undisturbed at the front. You can simply go out at any time.”
The team tried to design a robot especially for aging at home or support in care facilities. Based on interviews with older adults and their carers, they have developed several design requirements, in that the robot must fit through the home door, enable the user a full step and support full weight to support in balance, attitude and transition from the seat.
The robot consists of a massive, 220-pound base, whose dimensions and structure have been optimized to support the weight of the average person without tips or slip. Under the base there is a set of omnidirectional wheels that allows the robot to move in any direction without trading, if necessary. (Imagine that car wheels are changing to slip into the space between two other cars, without a parallel parking.)
From the base of the robot there is a articulated body made of 18 connected bars or connections, which can again configure like a folding crane to lift a person from a sitting position to a standing position and vice versa. Two arms with the steering wheel stretch from a U -shaped robot, whose person can stand between and inclined if he needs additional support. Finally, each robot arm is embedded in airbags made of cushioned, but glorious material that can immediately inflate to catch a person if he falls, without causing a bruise on the impact. Scientists believe that E-BAR is the first robot that can catch a falling person without devices to wear or apply the harness.
They tested a robot in a laboratory with an older adult who volunteered to apply the robot in various household scenarios. The team said that E-BAR can actively support the person who leaned in to pick up something from the ground and pulled out to reach the object from the shelf-rack, which can be complex, maintaining balance. The robot was also able to lift the person up and above the bathtub’s lip, simulating the task of getting out of the bathtub.
Bolli predicts that a project like E-BAR would be ideal for apply at home by the elderly, which still have a moderate degree of muscle strength, but require supporting devices for everyday life.
“Seeing the technology used in real scenarios is really exciting,” says Bolli.
In their current article, scientists did not include any possibilities of falling in the E-BAR airbag system. But another project at the Assad laboratory, led by the graduate Emily Kaminski, focused on developing algorithms with machine learning to control a novel robot in response to the level of risk of falling in real time.
In addition to E-BAR, Assad perceives various technologies in its laboratory as ensuring different levels of support to people at some phases of life or mobility.
“Conditions can change every few weeks or months,” says Assad. “We would like to provide continuous and smooth support as a disability or change in mobility with age.”
These works were partly supported by the National Robotics Initiative and the National Science Foundation.