Eating assist robot with easy human interface for severely handicapped person

An eating assist robot has been proposed for a severely handicapped person. The manipulator system can move a spoon in the three orthogonal directions. The manipulator system can also rotate and withdraw the spoon in order to dip food easily. Easy human interface using a head space pointer and a personal computer display has been designed. A user can operate the robotic manipulator by his/her head movement and breathing. A user can operate the robotic manipulator only by selecting many commands listed on the personal computer display. The evaluation experiments have been conducted in cooperation with a quadriplegic patient.