Development of meal assistance orthosis for disabled persons using EOG signal and dish image

Authors:
  • SGSatoru Goto
    Satoru Goto
  • MNMasatoshi Nakamura
    Masatoshi Nakamura
  • TSTakenao Sugi
    Takenao Sugi
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Abstract
A meal assistance orthosis is developed for elderly and/or disabled persons who have partly or completely lost the ability of moving their upper limbs by themselves independently. The meal assistance orthosis supports the disabled persons and brings foods from dishes to their mouth by their own forearms. Target positions of the meal assistance orthosis, i.e., the scooping points on dishes can be determined by using image processing of the dish image taken by a video camera. Human intention of food selection can be extracted from electrooculogram (EOG) signals which are measured by electrodes on the face. Position control is adopted for control strategy of the meal assistance orthosis and force-free control which can realise flexible motion of the meal assistance orthosis is adopted in order to avoid injuring the users. The effectiveness of the developed meal assistance orthosis is assured by experimental works on normal persons.