Towards a vision controlled robotic home environment

Ergonomics concern the creation of a product or an environment, where the connection between human skills and the surrounding is optimized. The aim of the proposed paper focuses on the implementation of a novel furniture system, offering ergonomy, by automatically adjusting its height relative to the user needs. The proposed robotic furniture system provides an integrated solution, comprising reduced space utilization, modularity, and intelligent operation while maintaining ergonomy. A set of electrical motors is used to position the various sections of the system into the correct height level, and to displace them towards the horizontal axis, to allow a rotational motion path. A vision system was integrated on the prototype to perform object recognition, in order to efficiently classify objects stored into the various system sections, and in order to assist the user in retrieving a specific previously stored object, by moving the appropriate section of the furniture into the correct height.