Development of a New Mobile Humanoid Robot for Assisting Elderly People

This paper presents a new mobile humanoid robot for assisting elderly people. The humanoid robot is equipped with a visual sensor to recognize objects. The Laser Range Finder placed in the lower part of mobile platform makes it possible to detect obstacles. After determining the target object, the robot starts moving toward it and then the grasping motion is generated. We address the kinematics, mechatronic and robot specifications. Our goal is to use the mobile humanoid robot for assisting the elderly and work interactively with humans in real environment such as hospitals or homes. Experimental preliminary results are presented for object grasping in real environment.