Page 324 - Handbook of Electronic Assistive Technology

Chapter 11 • Robotics 313

cross a room filled with chairs without any interference (Moravec, 1983). Also in the 1970s,
ASEA IRB 6 was launched, which was the first robot to be electronically driven and con-
trolled by the Intel 8008, one of their earliest microprocessors (Thiessen, 1981).
Provision of feedback from robotic devices was the next major development. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ‘Silver Arm’ was developed in 1974 to assem-
ble small parts with the use of feedback from touch and pressure sensors (Moran, 2007).
The first robot with embedded motors, the direct drive robotic arm, was developed by
Takeo Kanade in 1981. The electric motors housed within the joints removed the need for
chains or tendons used in earlier robots. This circumvented the need for long transmis-
sions and instead employed direct drive arms that minimised backlash and friction, mak-
ing them faster and more accurate (Asada et al., 1983).

Emergence of Assistive Robots

Active assistive robots for upper limb rehabilitation have been developed since the 1960s.
The first computerised arm, the Case Research Arm (developed at the Case Institute of
Technology), was a floor-mounted, 4 DOFs, externally powered robotic arm (Leblanc and
Leifer, 1982). It carried a paralysed user’s arm through a range of manipulation sequences
when the user directed a head-mounted light beam at photoreceptors mounted on selected
objects. This work was progressed at the Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in California, where
in 1969 the Rancho Golden Arm was developed. This was a battery-powered orthotic
device with the same design concept as the Case system but without computer control
(Moe and Schwartz, 1972). It was used to help people with disabilities by supporting and
moving their arm to augment function. The arm had six joints to give it the flexibility of
a human arm, and was operated by using seven tongue switches in a sequential mode
(Harwin et al., 1995).
In 1978, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Palo Alto Health Care System and
the School of Engineering at Stanford University (SU) collaborated on a 15-year rehabilita-
tion robotics programme. The programme started with the ‘Robotic Aid Project’, which
aimed to apply industrial robotics technology combined with commercial and prototype
user interface devices, to develop a system that could be used by people with quadriplegia
(Rocon and Pons, 2011). The system implemented voice recognition technology to con-
trol the robot. This was followed by the Clinical Robotics Laboratory project (1985–89),
which was established to develop and evaluate a new generation of desktop robots, to
assist people in performing activities of daily living (ADL). The Mobile Vocational Assistant
Robot (MoVAR) project began in 1983. The MoVAR used a mobile base and had the abil-
ity to manipulate objects using a robotic arm (a commercial PUMA-250 arm), go through
interior doorways and display its surroundings via a mounted camera system. The system
interfaced with patients using voice control, keyboard or head movements. The final note-
worthy collaboration (1989–94) of VA/SU was the Desktop Vocational Assistant Robot, a
desktop version of the MoVAR, which was mainly developed for use in a vocational envi-
ronment (Van der Loos, 1995).