‫ ٻ‬2013 10th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI)

October 31-November 2, 2013 / Ramada Plaza Jeju Hotel, Jeju, Korea

Kitchen Extension Robot Module for Elderly Housing

Kazuyoshi Wada1, Takayoshi Tanaka2, Yusuke Suganuma3,
Mime Hashimoto4, and Toshihiko Suzuki5
1,2,3
Department of System Design, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 6-6 Asahigaoka, Hino, Tokyo, 191-0065, Japan
(Tel : +81-42-585-8475; E-mail: k_wada@sd.tmu.ac.jp)
4
Department of Health Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 7-2-10 Higashiogu, Arakawa, Tokyo, 116-8551, Japan
(E-mail: mime.h@hs.tmu.ac.jp)
5
Department of Engineering, Kogakuin University, 1-24-2 Nishi-shijuku, Shijuku, Tokyo, 163-8677, Japan
(E-mail: suzuki@atelier-opa.com)

Abstract - Recently, public housing are rebuilt for the
elderly in the center of a city. The main purposes of
rebuilding are flatting floors, installation of handrails, and
expansion of bathroom and toilet for people using
wheelchair. Because giving priority to them, spaces for
kitchen and dining room are very limited. The kitchen
doesn't have enough cooking and storage space; and
dining room doesn’t have space for dining table. In this
study, we propose a robot module that can expand spaces
for cooking, store electric appliances, cooking tools and
tableware, and transform into the dining table.
Keywords – Smart Variable Space, Intelligent Space,
Architectural Furniture
1. Introduction
Japan is going into depopulating society, now. Japan’s
population was 128.06 million in 2010, and then will
decrease to 86.74 million in 2060.On the other hand,
Proportion of the elderly to the total population will
increase. The elderly population was 34.64 million in 2060
from 29.48 million in 2010 [1]. On the other hand, big
cities like Tokyo have been attracting many people
because of its high efficiency. The trend is no changes, and
population inflow into the big cities is continuing.
Therefore, increase of elderly people living alone in public
housing is expected [2, 3]. And, renovation of existing
housing for the people has begun [4].
The main purposes of renovation are flatting floors,
installation of handrails, and expansion of bathroom and
toilet for people using wheelchair. The renovation offers to
be able to keep their independence of activities of daily
living (ADL) for a long time. Moreover, it is intended to
create care spaces for the resident in the future.
However, big cities are suffering from space shortage;
therefore, many public elderly housing can offer only
about 25 square meters per room. As the result of giving
priority to the renovation of the bathroom and toilets, very
limited spaces are remained for kitchen and dining room.
Therefore, kitchen doesn't have enough cooking and
storage space of electric appliances, cooking tool, and
tableware. Moreover, dining room doesn’t have space for
dining table.
In this paper, we propose kitchen extension robot
module for elderly house. The module can expand the
cooking space, and store electric appliances, cooking tools
and tableware. Furthermore it can transform into the
dining table. The purpose of this module is to create the
enough spaces for cooking and eating to keep their
activities of daily living.
Section II explains related researches. Section III
describes a kitchen extension robot module. Section IV
explains the prototype module. Finally, section VI offers
conclusions.
2. Rerated Research
2.1 Skelton Infill
Recently, a concept of a method called skeleton-infill to
extend building duration has received attention. This is the
method to enhance architectural sustainability by dividing
a building into two factors: the skeleton (an empty space
without partitions and equipment) and infill (changeable
equipment and partitions). Building duration is generally
decided not on physical duration of structural skeleton but
on when it cannot respond to its residents' changes of
family structure or life style. In fact, duration of
architecture would be longer if it can be adaptable to such
changes. The concept of the skeleton-infill which enables
equipment having shorter duration than a building to be
more renewable and inner room arrangement to be more
changeable to respond to changes in lives has been widely
accepted from the above point of view. However, infill
which can change room arrangement is not easy to carry
out and does not usually provide for enough changeability
to respond to daily alternation of application thereof. Upon
such problem consciousness, some case examples trying
to solve those problems with "furniture combining
architectural functions" which is like an intermediate
between furniture and partitions or equipment have been
carried out in order to deliver interior design of higher
changeability [5-8].
2.2 Architectural Furniture
In the above-mentioned, Infill is not provided with
quick-response changeability against everyday application
alteration, since it is supposed to be altered in a time-span
of around 15 to 30 years. Reflecting such situation,
"furniture combining architectural functions" to play an

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intermediate role between infill and furniture has

appeared.‫ٻ‬
For example, Baumhaus, Nobuaki Furuya and Studio
NASCA proposed a mechanism, as a trial to enhance
sustainability of rented apartments which are expected to
respond to various life styles, wherein architectural part is
to be an empty space without partition like a skeleton, and
interior provides furniture functioning as partition as well
as closet which residents can arrange interior layout by
deciding how the furniture is placed [7].
Figure 1 shows the examples of architectural furniture,
mobile kitchen, foldaway guest room and foldaway office,
designed by Suzuki [5, 6]. Each architectural furniture has
casters to realize easy operation by humans. When those
are folded in, its appearances look like suits case. When
those are folded out, kitchen space, guest room, and study ‫ٻ‬
room appears.
Fig.1 Folding in and out of three types of
2.3 Smart Variable Space Architectural Furniture
The efficiency of space means "how many functions a
space could have." The functions that a space could have
are limited. Therefore, a floor plan of house is divided into
living, kitchen, study, bedroom, and etc. according to the
function. The resident moves the room according to the
usage. At this moment, the room not used is a useless
space in the viewpoint of the space efficiency
improvement (Fig. 2).
Architectural furniture is suitable for the change in a
layout that is more daily than Skeleton Infill. Additionally,
the character of architectural furniture is effective for the
efficiency improvement of the space. Even narrow space
could have various functions by preparing various
architectural furniture modules. However, architectural ‫ٻ‬
furniture requires one or two operators due to the size and
weight. Against this problem, robot technology can offer a Fig.2 Image of Smart Variable Space
solution; even more can add some intelligence and
autonomy.
So, we have proposed Smart Variable Space (SVS) [9,
10]. SVS is the expanded concept of architectural furniture
by combining with robot technology. SVS realizes various
functional spaces by changing its Spatial Configuration
Modules, robotic architectural furniture, dynamically.
Each module can automatically transform from wall/box
into a functional space, such as, bedroom, office,
according to the user’s daily living cycle. So far, a
bedroom type module (Fig.3) was developed as an ‫ٻ‬
example of the spatial configuration module.‫ٻٻ‬

3. Kitchen Extension Robot Module

3.1 Intended Environment
According to locomotion ability, elderly people can be
divided into four groups: “walking", "wheelchair", "sitting
locomotion", and "bedridden". Furthermore they can be
divided into two groups, "independence" and "assisted".
Our proposed module targets people aged around 65-74 ‫ٻ‬
years old, living alone, "walking" and "independence"
Fig.3 Appearances of bedroom module for
now; however, their state will be "wheelchair" or
Smart Variable Space
"assisted" in the future.
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Fig.4 Floor plan of public housing
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Fig.5 Ideal space for cooking
The assumed space is a unit in renovated public housing
for elderly; the floor area is about 25 square meters and flat
floor (Fig.4). The unit doesn't have enough space in
kitchen and dining room for putting electric appliances
and dining table.‫ٻ‬Figure 5 is an ideal size of kitchen. In
contrast, the size of kitchen in the assumed space is
W1500 × D650 × H850 [mm] for convenience of space. In
this size, it is hard to cook because gas cooker take only
one mouth, and cooking space is smaller.
3.2 Concept of Kitchen Extension Robot Module
Figure 6 shows conceptual image of proposed module.
Usually, the module is stored under the electromagnetic
cooker. The module goes out to expand cooking space
when the resident is cooking. Moreover, it moves to living
space and then creates dining space by folding out the
dining table.
In order to implement these concepts, the module is
mounted the electric appliances and cooking tools inside
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Fig.6 Image of using kitchen extension module
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of module, and working space on the top of module as
functions required during cooking. The module mounted
them connects to the kitchen to be the same height of the
kitchen and the L-shaped, and it is possible to extend the
lacking working space. In addition, users don’t have to
walk around, when users use electrical appliances and
cooking tools. Further, in order to create the dining space,
the module is mounted the expanding table on the side of
module. The module can transform into the dining table,
and don’t have to be placed in living at all times. Also,
when users don’t use the module, it takes no space in daily
life and isn’t an obstacle by storing in the kitchen. In
addition, the module isn’t a burden to the elderly by
installing the automatic moving mechanism.
4. Development of the Prototype
4.1 Configuration of Module
Figure 7 shows the appearance of the developed kitchen
extension robot module. Table 1 shows the specification.
The top of module is the working space that can be
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Table 1 Specification of kitchen extension module

Normal W700×D600×H730[mm]

Rise W700×D600×H850[mm]

Expansion W1300×D600×H730[mm]
Area of
W664×D600=398400[mm2]
working table
Move speed 0.72[km/h]

Weight 43[kg]

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Fig.7 Appearances of kitchen extension module
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changed its height from 730[mm] to 850[mm] by manual
operation; the module’s height can fit to kitchen’s one. ‫ٻ‬
‫ٻ‬
The inside of module has storage space for rice cooker, Fig.8 Appearances of mobile robot (MDT-RO-02)
toaster, electric kettle, and microwave oven, and drawers ‫ٻ‬
to store cooking tools and tableware. The lower part of
module consists of an omnidirectional mobile robot Table 2 Specification of mobile robot (MDT-RO-02)
(MDT-RO-02, Mitsubishi Electric TOKKI Systems
Corporation [11]) as moving mechanism. Figure 8 shows Name MDT-RO-02
the appearance of the mobile robot; Table 2 shows its
specification. User can control its movement and rotation Mitsubishi Electric TOKKI
Manufacturer
by sending commands to brushless DC motor via wireless Systems Corporation
LAN using numeric keypad. For example, key 0 is stop, Size ij390×H150 [mm]
key 1 is going ahead, key 2 is going back and so on. The
module has two folding tables at the side. It can transform Weight About 8 [kg]
into dining table.
Move speed 1.5 [km/h]
4.2 Demo experiment Transmission
Wireless LAN㧔2.4[GHz]㧕
In this experiment, we aimed to confirm the functions method
of kitchen extension. The operation procedure of the
experiments is as follows.
(1) Starting from the kitchen increased to 593,400[mm2].
(2) Turning 90 degrees to the right Therefore, it is considered that the original cooking
(3) Raising the working space manually space was extended to the ideal cooking space (Fig. 5).
(4) Using the workbench Furthermore, it saves the spaces for electrical appliances,
(5) Lowering the working space manually cooking tools and tableware; and L-shaped kitchen offers
(6) Turning 90 degrees to the left appropriate cooking space.
(7) Storing in the kitchen

4.3 Results
Figure 9 shows the results of a series of operations in the
experiments. From the experiments, the original cooking
space (195,000[mm2]) was expanded by the amount of the
working space (398,400[mm2]) at the top of kitchen
extension module. The total size of cooking space

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Variable Space. The concept of the module was

"expanding kitchen space", "storing various cooking tool",
and "transforming from cooking space to dining table."
And then, the prototype module was developed. In the
future work, we will study autonomous movement and
simple operational interface for the module, and then
develop a new kitchen extension robot module.

References
[1] National Institute of Population and Social Security
Research, Population Projections for Japan:
2011-2060, January, 2012.
[2] National Institute of Population and Social Security
Research, Households Projections for Japan:
1995-2020, October, 1998.
[3] H, Nishioka, T. Suzuki, M. Yamauchi, and K,
Suga.:Household Projections for Japan : 2005 – 2030
Outline of Results and Methods. The Japanese Journal
of Population, Vol.9, No.1(2011)
[4] Mime Hashimoto, Hiroe Suzuki, A study of effects on
house renovation buided by a team of specialists
(part1) : Needs and effects of house renovation,
Architectural Institute of Japan,P317-318,1994.7.25
[5] T. Suzuki, K. Honma. Development and Validation of
“Architectural Furniture” Research on Furniture
Combining Architectural Functions ("Architectural
Furniture"). : AIDIA Journal, Vol.8, 2008.
[6] Suzuki.T. Architectural Furniture -furniture
combining architectural functions. : AIDIA Journal,
vol.7, 2007.
[7] STUDIO NASCA, http://www.studio-nasca.com/
[8] A. V. Vegesack, Mathias Schwartz-Clauss, Manfred
Allie, and Barbara Haub.: LIVING IN MOTION.
Vitra Design Stiftung( 2002)
[9] Kazuyoshi Wada, Toshihiko Suzuki, Keisuke
Takayama and Eiji Kubo, Development of Bedroom
Module for Smart Variable Space, Proc. of the 5th Int.
Conf. on the Advanced Mechatronics,
pp.540-544,2010.
[10] K. Wada, E. Kubo, N. Nakashio, K. Takayama, and T.
Fig.9 Demo Experiment Suzuki.:Path Planning for Bedroom type Robot
Module. Proc. IEEE/SICE International Symposium
‫ٻ‬
on System Integration, pp.288-292.( 2011)
Table 3 Change of cooking space‫ٻ‬ [11] MDT-RO-02,http://www.melos.co.jp/products/all_az
imuth_robo.html
Before using the module 195,000[mm2]

Working space of the

398,400[mm2]
module

After using the module 593,400[mm2]

Ideal cooking space 390,000[mm2]~585,000[mm2]

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5. Conclusion
In this study, we discussed space shortages of kitchen
and dining room by the renovation of public housing. To
solve this problem, we proposed the kitchen extension
module based on the previous research about Smart

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