Rehabilitation robot FRIEND II - the general concept and current implementation

Abstract

FRIEND II which is the successor of the rehabilitation robot FRIEND I is being developed at the Institute of Automation, University of Bremen, and belongs to the category 'intelligent' wheelchair mounted manipulators. Both systems are used as a personal assistant to support disabled persons with upper-limb impairments in daily life situations as well as in the working environment. Significant improvements are obtained with the use of smart devices, new camera systems, a humanlike robot arm with 7-joint kinematics, a new control concept - kinematic configuration control, force torque sensor and two interchangeable grippers. This paper describes the hardware selection and the innovations in the hardware of the system FRIEND II currently under development.