The development of a robot arm and workstation for the disabled

The Bath Institute of Medical Engineering has several years´ experience of using robotics to aid the disabled. The approach being followed at the Institute is to use a relatively low cost robotic arm in a semi-structured workstation environment. The initial work used a commercially available arm intended for the educational market. This has been built into a workstation and has undergone trials with disabled users, and various aspects of this workstation are discussed. These tests have shown the value of using robotics. Problems were identified and attempts have been made to correct them. In particular, the earlier workstation was considered too large for a domestic environment, and noise and speed could be improved