Welcome, and on this video we are doing product review for the RIBA ll Robot, which has been co-developed by Riken and Tokai rubber industries! So if you want to learn how this caregiving bot is capable of lifting patient from bed to wheelchair,  then please stay tuned!

Hi Guys, I’m Philip English from robophil.com, now on this video we are looking at the Riken and Tokai rubber industries design,  Robot Caregiving –bot = RIBA ll !

RIBA ll, is a two armed care support Robot that can lift a patient up to 80kg in weight off floor-level bedding and into a wheelchair, freeing care facility personnel of one of their most difficult and energy-consuming tasks.

In Japan, with an elderly population in need of nursing care projected to reach a staggering 5.69 million by then of 2015, Japan faces an urgent need for new approaches to assist care-giving personnel.

In 2009, the RIKEN-TRI Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research (RTC), a joint project established in 2007 and located at the Nagoya Science Park in central Japan, unveiled a robot called RIBA 1 (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) designed to assist in this task.

This is the first robot capable of lifting a patient from a bed to a wheelchair and back, RIBA 1 charted a new course in the development of care-giving robots, yet functional limitations prevented its direct commercialization.

RTC’s new robot, named RIBA-II, overcomes these limitations with added power and functionality. New joints in the robot’s base and lower back enable RIBA-II to crouch down and lift a patient off a futon at floor level, the most physically strenuous task for care-givers and one that RIBA 1 was not able to do.

RIBA-II accomplishes this task using newly-developed Smart Rubber sensors, the first capacitance-type tactile sensors made entirely of rubber. Printed in sheets and fitted onto the robot’s arms and chest, the sensors enable high-precision tactile guidance and allow RIBA-II to quickly detect a person’s weight from touch alone, guaranteeing patient safety.

Staff can control RIBA’s motion by directly touching its tactile sensors. RIBA’s makers say this is an intuitive control method because the contact position and force direction coincide with those of the desired motion. By pattern processing RIBA can detect the operator’s touch even when in the process of lifting a human.

When it comes to the design of the Robot, the design team asked care assistant workers, what the robot should be shaped like. They said that a human type robot, might confuse or frighten people with Alzheimer’s or Autism. but they said an Animal shaped robot would be easier for patients to deal with, hence the design of the bear like robot  with the shorten name= Robear!

RIBA has specially-created joint positions and link lengths designed for lifting up a human. It’s slim arms and joint structure have high rigidity and high output torque, while two cameras and two microphones allow it to follow an operator using visual and audio cues. When the operator is within its view, RIBA detects the position (direction and distance), and moves to the operator’s front. RIBA also detects sound source direction.

Please have a look at the image to my left, for a quick spec’s for the robot, which include his weight, Height, Payload, tactile sensor area, his hand, vision & Audio sensors. As well as the operation time and a few of his internal devices.

In the future, RTC researchers will work together with partner nursing care facilities to test RIBA-II and further tailor it to the needs of care-givers and their patients, while also developing new applications in areas such as rehabilitation. TRI aims to bring care-giving robots like RIBA-II to the market in the near future, promising support for aging populations in countries around the world.

Thanks Guys, I hope you enjoyed the overview of the RIBA ll Robot, from Riken & Tokai rubber industries.

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Philip English: https://philipenglish.com

Sponsor: Robot Center: http://www.robotcenter.co.uk