Proposal for Standing Assistance Procedures Using the Spatial Characteristics of Standing Motions of the Elderly that Correspond to the Remaining Muscle Strength of Each Individual

The objective of this research is to develop a standing assistance robot that performs standing assistance procedures suited to the muscle strength of each individual elderly person. For realizing this objective, this paper identified that the shape of the spatial set of postures (safety tolerance) in which an elderly person can stand safely differs depending on the way in which the individual's muscle strength weakens. Furthermore, this paper found that the shape of the safety tolerance corresponds one-to-one to the pattern of muscle weakness commonly seen in elderly persons. Using this finding, this paper enabled a standing assistance robot to support the standing of elderly persons safely and using the remaining muscle strength of the elderly person without performing complex calculations by giving the shape of the safety tolerance, which indicates the pattern of muscle weakness in the elderly person. The effectiveness of our proposed method was confirmed using musculoskeletal simulations with data obtained from muscle strength tests on actual elderly persons.