Human interface and vibration control of robotic manipulator suspended from ceiling

A robotic manipulator, suspended from a ceiling of a general house, with an easily operated human interface and vibration-reduction control of a suspended hand, is proposed in this paper. A bedridden user can easily manipulate his/her belongings by using the robotic manipulator. The human interface is a laser pointer. When a bedridden user wishes to pick up a target object, the user exposes the target object to the laser beam spot by manipulating a joystick lever. Then, the user pushes a switch on the joystick lever. After this simple operation, the robotic hand moves automatically to the target object following a laser beam trajectory, and the user can capture the object. The robotic manipulator used in our research does not require ‘oor installation on a ‘oor because it is installed on the ceiling of a house. Two linear motion actuators are fixed on the ceiling, and the carriage is moved horizontally. The robotic hand is suspended from the carriage. An active vibration-reduction control system is designed to decrease the suspended hand vibrations. The swings of the suspended hand are detected by a hand-swing detection system using a laser position sensor. The validity of the proposed robotic manipulator has been confirmed by the experimental and simulation results.