Carnegie Mellon University’s robot can help elderly and paralyzed patients get dressed. Photo: Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh: Healthy people don’t need it, but there are millions of disabled and elderly people all over the world who face severe difficulties in wearing clothes, now a robot has been developed to help them.
Experts at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a robotic arm that can dress people using artificial intelligence (AI). The lead researcher, Yufei Wang, is a PhD researcher at the University’s Robotics Institute. They say that most robots that help with clothing can only do one type of work. These robots can do the simple and easy task of donning a hospital gown with a patient’s outstretched arm.
Artificial intelligence has been used to further improve the robot and it learns rapidly and becomes adept at dressing in many ways. The robot was also made capable of recognizing and wearing different types of clothes.
Thus, the robot tested its capabilities 510 times on 17 humans. It included five types of clothing, people of different sizes. The robot put on a shirt with sleeves and was 85% successful at this task. But clothes are constantly changing their shape and it took a lot of effort to maintain them.
The most difficult task was to make the robot recognize the human and not try to force it, which could further harm the patient or the elderly.
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