Pertinant document - Gdiv-exploration/REP-RFM-9 GitHub Wiki

Pertinent Information

People with disabilities make up around 15 per cent of the global population – over 1 billion people1 with the majority living in developing countries. At least 785 million are of working age. When it comes to establishing how people with disabilities earn a living for themselves and their families in different part of the world, there is a lack of reliable, comparable data. Nonetheless, common patterns are reported in countries at different levels of development. • Compared to non-disabled persons, people with disabilities are less likely to be in full-time employment; more likely to be unemployed; and significantly more likely to be economically inactive. • People with disabilities in employment are more likely to be in jobs for which they are overqualified. • When in employment, workers with disabilities are more likely to count among the working poor, as they are frequently in low-paid jobs with poor career prospects and working conditions4 or work in poor quality, informal, subsistence jobs. • Some people with disabilities face greater disadvantage than others, when it comes to getting and keeping a decent job: o People with certain types of disability – such as intellectual and mental health disabilities face greater difficulties in finding and retaining employment. o Disabled women are less likely to have a decent job than either non-disabled women or men with disabilities. Besides placing persons with disabilities at a higher risk of poverty, these patterns combine to bring about significant social and economic losses, estimated at between 3 and 7 per cent of GDP in an ILO pilot study of ten low- and middle-income developing countries. [9]

Existing solutions for the problem

      At present there are many existing solutions .These solution can make the life of the disabled easier. Lift ware steady , Semi-automated robotic arm , Automatic robotic arm ,   I -CRAFT  (Eye-controlled robotic arm )

• Lift ware steady : This is an electronic stabilizing handle and selection of attachments that include spoon ,spork and fork. It works on sensors , motors and on board computer work to actively detect and it consist of rechargeable battery.[3] https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/42843900/47097356-dfdec200-d24e-11e8-9da5-1f4ef21f83f1.png Components and subcomponents

*Components – • Links :links are the different metal parts which are joined by joint. These are used to link the various parts of robotic arm.

• Handle :it is part which is used to holds spoon tightly and firmly in the robotic feeding machine.

• Sensor: this is the device that sense the presence of user and act according to it and enable the robotic arm to feed.

• Cables :it is used to connect all parts and allow the electric current to flow through it with which the robotic feeding machine works.

  • Sub-components-

• Spoon: it is used for picking the food kept in the plate or bowl and for feeding purpose.

• Gears : these are parts which helps in smooth and easy running of motors.

• Chopsticks : these are different kind of sticks which can be used instead of spoons to pick the food

Direct solutions available

People suffering from neuromuscular diseases have trouble lifting their arms against gravity although a large number of them maintain sensitivity and residual strengths in their hands. Therefore a device is desired that enables them to assist their feeding movements. There are commercially available feeders that are useful for people who have controlled movements of the head and neck and can take food off of a feeding utensil that is brought close to the mouth. Most feeders consist of an articulated, electrically powered arm with a spoon at its end, a plate on a rotating turntable and an auxiliary arm that may be used to push food on to

the spoon. The user controls, through the use of switches, the movement of the different components. Although such feeding aids can be used effectively, there are several reasons why their use is not as widespread as one would expect. The control switches may initiate a movement of a certain component, for example, a rotation of the plate.[5]

  1. Automated robotic arm:

- Automated machine is the solution for our need statement which can help physically disabled people (divyangs) for eating food, without assistance of another person. In this robotic system ,the robotic arm uses an attached spoon to scoop food from set of four bowls connected to its base and then deliver the food to users (divyangs) mouth with ease.[2]

2.Electrically controlled feeding robots:

This electrically controlled feeding robot is suitable for people with none or limited arm, hand or finger function. We can set this robot it two modes: 1.Semi- automatic mode:- in this mode the user has a choice of several ways to control the feeding robot most commonly switches are used. They are on and off button that helps user for smooth functioning of the robotic arm .This is easy to use.[10]

2.Automatic mode:- whenever the robot is set up  in automatic mode then there is no need of humans hand to work on it .These are having iconic design ,minimalist setup and operation .These are effective in food repositioning and multi-directional food capture .These are very easy to handle.[1]

In the above fig1.6(b) we can find that the robotic feeding arm is a simple to use and this device that operates using two button system .This device finds to be cheap and not be complex compared to other devices. The mechanism behind this is, when the power supply is turned on ,the user only needs to turn on the switch for the arm to sense and feed it .This uses a plastic spoon which is easily available and the alignment is also simple.[6]

Relevant products that we observed in local markets ,college surrounding and locality relating to our project are listed below

1.Robotic arm this is robot arm which we found in market which is more useful and relevant
to our project and it’s the main part of our project.[1(a)]

2.Sensors sensors are devices which can be used in the robot technology ,which can able to sense the users orders or commands, so as this is able to sense we can use this technology in our robot feeding technology for sensing the user command.[5] Some of the references 1(a).H.F.M. Van der Loos. VA/Stanford rehabilitation robotics research and development program: Lessons learned in the application of robotics technology to the field of rehabilitation. IEEE Transactions on Rehabilitation Engineering, 3(1): 46-55, 1995.GoogleScholar

2(a).G.E. Birch, M. Fengler, R.G. Gosine, K. Schroeder, M. Schroeder and D.L. Johnson. An assessment methodology and its application to a robotic vocational assistive device. Technology and Disability, 5(2):151-166, 1996.Google Scholar

3(a) .S.J. Sheredos, B. Taylor, C.B. Cobb and E.E. Dann. Preliminary evaluation of the helping hand electro-mechanical arm. Technology and Disability, 5(2):229-232, 1996.Google Scholar

4(a) .G. Verburg, H. Kwee, A. Wisaksana, A. Cheetham and J. van Woerden. Manus: The evolution of an assistive technology. Technology and Disability, 5(2):217-228, 1996.Google Scholar

5(a) .M. Topping. Handy I, a robotic aid to independence for severely disabled people. Technology and Disability, 5:233-234, 1996.Google Scholar

6(a) .C. Upton. The RAID workstation. Rehabilitation Robotics Newsletter, A.I. duPont Institute, 6(1),1994.Google Scholar

7(a) .H. Hoyer. The OMNI wheelchair. Service Robot: An International Journal, 1(1):26-29,MCB University Press Limited, Bradford, England, 1995.Google Scholar 8(a) .M. West and H. Asada. A method for designing ball wheels for omnidirectional vehicles. 1995 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, DAC-29, pp. 1931-1938, Seattle, WA 1995.Google Scholar

9(a) .F.G. Pin and S.M. Killough. A new family of omni-directional and holonomic wheeled platforms for mobile robots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 10(4):480-489, 1994.Google Scholar

Website referred

  1. https://meetobi.com
  2. www-recode-net.cdn.ampproject.org
  3. https://www.liftware.com
  4. https://biosmedical.com
  5. https://masahable.com
  6. https://acc-rerc.psu.edu
  7. https://newatlas.com
  8. https://www.engadget.com
  9. https://www.un.org 10.https://www.assistive- innovations.com