Articulated Robotic Arm for Feeding

Abstract

In today’s fast-paced world, disabled people are a large minority group, starved of services, mostly ignored by society, and live in isolation, segregation, poverty, charity and even pity. There are numerous forms of disabilities. The disability suffered by most persons includes mental disability, emotional, physical and cognitive. Perhaps the most overlooked effect of a disability that affects the motor functions of the limb is the reliance on other people for the completion of even simple tasks that ordinary people perform on a daily basis, like taking a shower, dressing up, brushing teeth, or even having a meal. This chips away at the self-worth of a disabled person and gnaws away at their confidence. Through our project, we aim to provide a solution to those with compromised motor functions. This project aims to develop a 4 DOF robotic manipulator that is able to map the facial structure of the user, and with a feeding device (spoon/fork) attached to its arm transfers adequate portion of food accurately into the user’s mouth without spillage through smooth motion, by incorporating Image Processing, Manipulator Kinematics and Machine Learning. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.