Design of a voice coil actuated office chair

In recent times, the use of robots in industry has revolutionized production methods, and enabled an increase in the quality of goods manufactured while decreasing the long term cost of labor. The commercial market, however, is largely lacking in robotic technology which could potentially revolutionize many everyday tasks undertaken by humans. This thesis describes a design integrating robotic technology with a common office chair. The requirements of such a chair are discussed, as well as the resulting design decisions. The advantages and drawbacks of the Voice Coil Actuators used in the design are also discussed. A prototype control system, enabling ergonomically beneficial motion is described and analyzed. Additionally, qualitative feedback from human testers is given, and suggestions for future work are made.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Scholz, Jeremy H

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cynthia Breazeal.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32920

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32920