Twendy-One, A robotic helping hand to the elderly

Japan be the country at have the research and develop robots to assist the elderly with everything from exercise and independent living to shopping. And this is an example of a robot helper to join the fray designed to support aging people in their daily activities.

Twendy-One is human symbiotic robot that has designed to co-exist with humans and assist with nursing care and housekeeping.

Twendy-One have design the body makes of soft silicone skins and force sensors that detect physical contact with a person on any part of its body, size and range of movement are designed to reflect those of the average adult female. It measures 1.46m high and 73.4cm wide. To overcome the limitations and difficulties of a bipedal design then design gave it an omni-directional wheel-based mechanism for mobility that allows the robot to move around efficiently even if the robot is in a narrow space. This mobile mechanism equips twelve ultrasonic sensors and a six-axis force sensor to detect objects and humans near the robot and avoid collisions.

Beside, Twendy-One still participate assemble other that important, neither be finger and hands that have four-finger-hand has 13 degrees of freedom. An arm from shoulder to elbow has four degrees of freedom with a small and lightweight. The trunk which has four degrees of freedom in total with high power actuators installed into the joints enabling it to pick up a heavy object on the floor and even support a human body weighing up to 35kg as they get out of bed or get up from a chair. And last, a head of Twendy-One contains two CCD cameras surrounded by LEDs, a speaker, and a six-axis force sensor. The illumination of the LEDs shows the condition of the robot’s vision system, while the force sensor can detect a human touch of the head

Twendy-One is a robot that was has the research and development by a team of Waseda University led by Professor Shigeki Sugano along with the cooperation of more than 20 private companies.

Upon release the finalized robot is expected to cost between US$110,350 to US$220,700

Designers: Waseda University