Towards Robotic Manipulator Assisted Positioning in Care

In nursing, nurses are burdened with many physically demanding tasks. Especially in ambulatory care, nurses are alone with their patients and are under great time pressure. Due to long journeys, no second nurse can be called in. Also, a suitable nursing aid is not always available or at hand for the patient. A flexible robotic solution can help here. In this paper, we consider the positioning of the patient on the side. In particular, the patient mobilized on the side should be held in this position. We analyze how a nurse would perform this activity and how a robot can be used for this. For this, we use Whole Arm Manipulation (WAM). WAM is a suitable means of ensuring that a manipulator can apply the necessary forces and reduce the risk of injury to the patient. We developed an algorithm for WAM based on the kinematics of the manipulator and the geometry of the scene. For simplification, an elliptical cylinder is used as a human model. The results show that the algorithm delivers valid results in different constellations.