Optimizing Perceived Heaviness and Motion for Lifting Objects with a Power Assist Robot System Considering Change in Time Constant

Power assist robots are usually used for disabled and elderly people to augment their abilities and skills. This paper proposes to use these robots to handle heavy objects in industries, and thus brings a novelty in the applications of power assist robots. However, it is difficult to optimize perceived heaviness and motion either independently or simultaneously for lifting objects with power-assist. Hence, this paper investigates the techniques to optimize perceived heaviness and motion following bionic and psychophysical approaches. We developed two systems-one was used to lift objects manually, and another was a power assist system to lift objects with it. Several hypotheses and strategies related to weight perception and time constant were adopted. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ON SMART SENSING AND INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS VOL. 5, NO. 2, JUNE 2012