Mechatronic Design of a Low-Cost Control System for Assisting Devices

In this paper, we focus our interest in the development of low-cost control systems of mechatronic devices for the homecare of the elderly and people with reduced mobility with the goal of assisting people in daily-life activities. The development of such systems will be exploited in the form of a tool kit to be flexible and applied either to assistive systems, in order to aid movements with controlled position, and in future force/torque and acceleration, introducing reliability, repetitiveness at a relatively low-cost in the related sector. In particular, the development of a low-cost control system design allows the applicability and interconnection of devices and solutions for the home-care. Our aim is to test low-cost technologies for the homecare of elderly and people with motor impairments trying to reduce significantly the overall costs to facilitate wider use of assisting and rehabilitation systems for the home-care. In particular, a Sit-To-Stand (STS) assisting device is considered as a paradigmatic example. Numerical simulations and results of an experimental test-bed are discussed in this paper.