Control of an intelligent lift system for severely disabled persons

In a system which is able to automatically lift a person with reduced motion skills, constraints like safety, comfort and simple man-machine interface have to be taken into respect simultaneously. Information from various sources, e.g. vision, force and dead reckoning has to be evaluated. For this class of applications, a new integrated control system is presented which combines classic control, sensor fusion, reactive behaviour and safety. The authors discuss the application of this control system in the context of two quite different service robotics projects.