Scoop the Semi-Liquid Objects Using a Spoon-Equipped Robot Arm for Meal Support

In this research, a scooping motion generation method is proposed to scoop the semi-liquid objects from different containers automatically for meal support purpose. A spoon equipped robot arm is used. Based on the pre-measured shape of the containers, the robot arm can move the spoon to trace the inner surface of containers continuously. We also control the rotation of the spoon to scoop more semi-liquid object every time by imitating human’s scooping motion. A scraping motion is also generated as the auxiliary operation to gather the remaining semi-liquid object, which can realize an increase in the scooping amount. In the experiment, we tested the generated scooping motion for two containers and four type of semi-liquid objects. The scooped amount and the scooping times are measured and compared. The result shows that about 85.9% object on average could be scooped out.