DEVELOPMENT OF AN AUTOMATIC FEEDER FOR PARKINSON PATIENTS AND ELDERLY

Abstract

The number of the ageing individuals and Parkinson patients are increasing, and a high number of caregivers are needed in providing the necessary care for them. They can only move their hands partially and unable to perform some basic everyday tasks, including eating. This paper focuses on the development of an automatic feeder for the elderly and Parkinson patients. The robot is equipped with “Choose Food” and “Scooping” programmes. The user is able to choose the food from a rotating tray with three bowls of food. The automatic feeder has six degree of freedoms (DOF) and Tower Pro servo motors MG995 act as the actuators. The kinematics analysis of the robotic system has been performed and Haar Cascade algorithm is implemented to detect the user’s mouth position. Once this coordinate is identified, it is sent to the microcontroller to move the robotic arm to the required location. The hardware experimental test results show that the algorithm has successfully detected the mouth position and the robotic arm moves to the desired position to feed the user. This system will help the physically challenged person to be more independent instead of relying too much on the caregivers and will allow them to eat in peace at their own pace.