Manipulation of the Sense of Effort when Holding a Weight by Force Assist by Using Artificial Muscles

Understanding the decline in motor functions of the elderly is important to provide useful service to improve their quality of life. In this paper, we develop a system to manipulate the sense of effort when holding a weight with force assist by using artificial muscles. Based on the relationship between weight and sense of effort during weight holding, the amount of force assist was calculated. The experimental results suggested that the proposed method can create the sense of effort of other person with force assist.