Wash, Cook, Support, Deliver: Panasonic Patents for Machines That Help

What is it?

A user rests their head in the bowl while left and right washing units move around it. The units carry multiple contacts and nozzles for water and washing agents.

Independent left-right control is intended to wash effectively without imposing an unnecessary twisting force on the neck. A machine is taking over a very close-contact care task.

What is it?

The system measures how high ingredients are piled across the cooking container, then changes the direction and position of the mixer.

The goal is to reduce uneven heating, burning, and damage to ingredients. Cooking is treated not as a fixed repeating motion but as a task that requires sensing the state of the pan and responding to it.

What is it?

Instead of asking a caregiver to lift a person from the bed, long supporting portions slide under the body and take the load.

The patent focuses on reducing physical burden on the caregiver while giving the person receiving care a greater sense of security. The machine enters the act of lifting itself, rather than merely becoming a cart afterward.

What is it?

The bed contains a stationary unit and a traveling vehicle. When combined, the traveling vehicle forms part of the bed; when separated, it can change posture and serve as a wheelchair.

Instead of improving the transfer from bed to wheelchair, the invention tries to remove the transfer. The place supporting the person becomes the vehicle.

What is it?

The system uses a care belt and robot to support a seated person through the process of standing.

The problem has shifted from simply adding lifting force to guiding a human motion. The machine is expected to follow how the body should move, rather than treating the user as cargo.

What is it?

The robot detects force on its handle while supporting the user's walking. The disclosure also describes projecting light onto the floor to show a boundary or warning when nearby obstacles are detected.

The safety problem now includes other people sharing the same space. The robot is designed not only to support its user but also to signal the space occupied by the human-and-robot pair.

What is it?

Here the machine is no longer pushed or held: it is worn. Units arranged along the arms follow the wearer's motion and generate assisting force for heavy work.

Because heavy motors and frames can themselves become a burden, the suit is supported from above by a suspension member. The design has to assist the work without making the wearer carry the assistant.

What is it?

The spherical body can roll through a room while using cameras, microphones, speakers, and face-like displays to interact with people.

When it encounters an obstacle, the controller does not always choose maximum avoidance. If the obstacle is the user, the robot may approach, invite conversation, or perform behavior intended to increase interaction.

What is it?

Avoiding a person's current position is not enough when the person is moving. This patent uses temporal position changes to estimate a region where the person is likely to move next and treats that region as a virtual obstacle.

The disclosure contemplates nursing care, cleaning, conveyance, guidance, patrol, and other tasks. Sharing human space becomes a prediction problem, not just a mapping problem.

What is it?

This patent coordinates multiple autonomous mobile robots and sends a selected robot to a location where a user wants a service. Each robot has a travel section and a box section used to provide the service.

The disclosure contemplates supplying goods such as drinks, lunch boxes, books, medicine, and ice cream, as well as services including guidance, signage, and security. The machine that began by taking over one task beside a person has expanded into something that moves through a community to bring the service itself.