Development of anal position detecting system for new-toilet system

Japan entered a super-aged society, and nursing care is a serious social problem. Especially, an excretion care causes physical and mental stress to both caregivers and recipients. In this study, we have been developing a new-toilet system for reducing the stress of the excretion care. The new-toilet system can capture feces and prevent odor dispersion by adhering tightly to buttocks. For attaching the device to buttocks, it is necessary to know the position of the anus. It is preferable that the device automatically moves to the anal position and adhere to the buttocks without caregiver´s help. Therefore we developed a sensing system of the anal position using the infrared camera. This paper describes the position detecting system and its estimation.