Development and Evaluation of a Human-interactive Robot Platform "RI-MAN"

The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a robot that is able to perform physical tasks such as nursing care skillfully and safely in complex environment of our home and/or hospitals. In order to realize such a robot, the design criteria and approach should be different from that of traditional industrial robots. Specifically, considering the physical interactions between the robot and human subjects, the safety, ease and affinity are more important in addition to the robot's high power, speed and accuracy. Towards this objective, “RI-MAN” is developed in RIKEN BMC which demonstrated the high ability to carry up and hold a doll softly and safely. This paper first discusses the problems on the design of a human-interactive robot, and proposes original key technologies and system integration to solve the problems including the soft and whole body interaction. The details and basic performance of RI-MAN are then introduced together with some experimental results. The further research subjects are also pointed.