This project is described the massage robot working and acting on the body back with pressure by automation. The massage robot will offer a more affordable and user-friendly alternative with the same benefits as the massage by the therapist. The study investigated the role of effective massage head of robot in the interaction between human and robot. Through a process of design and controlled user evaluation, we examined the cooperation between robot and human as well as the physical influence of affective contact. The system scans to perceive and give motions and touch through elastic and vibration contact. We detail the design of the massage robot, which imitates massage experts with complex operations, then was enhanced through intelligent autonomous.
In the Eastern countries, acupuncture and acupressure are very popular and no one can deny their positive aspects. They help people relax and feel comfortable after a long day working. Besides, the advantages of kneading on human point are discovered by experts through their long-time working in this field. However, the current method that chiefly uses the human resource still has some defects. First of all, a human can do no more than he can, working in a long period of time can make therapists exhausted and the efficiency also decreases dramatically. Secondly, privacy is the considerable problem. Being looked and touched by a stranger is not a good experience. The most important thing is the contagion. Along with the development of medicine, viruses also increase considerably. The viruses can be spread through touch on the skin. All aforementioned reasons make the traditional method become outdated and risky as ever. Knowing that need, a massage machine is oncoming. It can be controlled by some buttons as well the remote control. Someone think that is convenient but the others argue that it is complicated and not suitable for the old and children. A totally automatic robot is in need.
Massage robot systems are performing and expected to perform healthcare missions. It is difficult to develop an intelligent robot, which performs point and massage tasks autonomously on human back. Current massage technology makes necessary to rely on the human operator for providing overall task contact and interaction, and for handling special situations. The benefits of automation of a massage robot have already been proved, which is operated to perform complex tasks. There are many advantages: first, the touch of human hands is replaced by the robot massage head; second, the control of the movements and trajectory can have greater resources available based on AI; third, the massage by robot permits to reduce workload; and forth, robot massage removes social evil to perform interaction between two people, etc. Hence, using robot for massage seems very attractive, but on the other side there are some important drawbacks or limitations that must be overcome: (i) human-robot interaction; (ii) determination of human points and massage lines being suitable to health care; (iii) lack of feedback signals with difficult control in operation. Under such a condition, special attention should be paid to contact forces when performing contact task with a robot on the human back. Therefore, the robot should be controlled autonomously with compliance feature. Compliance is useful to cope with the error caused by an imperfect model. Note that some sort of compliance feature on the manipulator, either active or passive, is effective for contact task.
