Abstract
A massage robot that helps to improve the quality of human life has attracted more interests of researchers and consumers. A portable back massage robot that is compact and space-saving was designed to be used on human back instead of a traditional large-scale structure robot. To design the massage robot, the models of electric circuit, magnetic circuit and mechanics were analyzed to achieve optimal massage force. Parameters of the massage actuator are determined based on the influence analysis of the coil current, the coil turns and the distance between the moving core and the yoke on the electromagnetic force. The massage coverage of human back, which is used to calculate the massage effect, could be improved by an excellent path planning algorithm. This article proposed an efficient full covered path planning algorithm for the designed massage robot, and the relevant algorithm models were established. Simulation results show that the coil current is much more sensitive to electromagnetic force of the moving core compared to the other two factors, and the presented path planning algorithm completes full coverage of the massage robot on the back area. The experimental platform of the massage robot was built, and the influence of the input signal duty cycle, the input signal voltage and the hardness of the massage object on the massage effect was discussed by testing the values of acceleration. The tested results show that the massage effect is best when the duty cycle is in the range of 1/8–1/2. Meanwhile, the hardness of massage parts affects the massage intensity. The consistency between the tested results of path planning and simulation verifies the feasibility of the simulation procedure and indicates that the massage robot can attain the desired massage performance and realize the planned paths.
Highlights
An intelligent massage robot is desirable for improving the quality of human life based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that is considered an effective physiological treatment to improve blood circulation, relieve fatigue and reduce muscle pain.[1,2]
A passivity-based impedance controller was used to develop a 4-degree of freedom (DOF) anthropomorphic robotic arm with integrated elastic joints to reproduce the manipulation of TCM remedial massage and guarantee safety proposed by Huang et al.[8]
The regional coverage of the boustrophedon path planning algorithm is 35.27%, while the coverage of the improved algorithm increases to 60.27%, which indicates the performance gets improved with the proposed algorithm
Summary
An intelligent massage robot is desirable for improving the quality of human life based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that is considered an effective physiological treatment to improve blood circulation, relieve fatigue and reduce muscle pain.[1,2] There has been a remarkable growth in the usage of massage manipulators since the past decade, prominent among them being massage chairs, massage hammer, massage cape and massage bots.[3]. Massage products are usually unsatisfactory for their functional insufficiency of intelligence and safety.[4] More and more researchers devote to develop high intelligent massage equipment or robot to prompt the product’s functionality in safety, path planning and massage effect.[5,6,7]. A massage robot was developed based on the clinical requirements of TCM massage and healthcare for rehabilitation for chronic disease by Gao et al.[11] There are some massage robots that were developed for specific body parts, such as oral (facial) tissues,[12,13] chest (back)[14] and feet.[15] From the analysis of the state of the art, existing robots could provide more functions and become more intelligent, they are still difficult to be widely spread due to the complexity of the control system, high cost and heavy structure.[16] all the above-mentioned researchers focus on large-scale structure massage robots located in hospitals or rehabilitation centers,[14] and some of which were directly developed from industrial robots used as a base for half-autonomous or autonomous massage robots. In case of human back movements, the existing programmed motion planning of the massage robot is not suitable
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