Bathing Robot: Care Baths, Washing Pods and ABB Arms

A bathing robot takes on one of the hardest tasks in care: washing a person who cannot safely wash themselves. In care homes and hospitals it is still mostly done by hand, by staff working on wet floors with heavy lifts. This post follows bathing care from public baths and hospital hydrotherapy tubs to Sanyo's capsule bath at Expo 70 in Osaka, then looks at Science Co.'s "human washing machine" from Expo 2025, the care bath machines now sold in China and Korea, and where ABB robots could and could not fit.

Sanyo's Ultrasonic Bath, the human washing machine shown at Expo 70 in Osaka, on display in 2014. Photo: Tokumeigakarinoaoshima / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

How bathing care moved from basins to hydrotherapy tanks

For most of history, people who could not bathe alone were washed by family members or servants with a basin, a cloth and water warmed on a stove. In Japan, bathing was also a public habit, and neighbourhood bathhouses called sento still operate in Tokyo. In hospitals, nurses gave bed baths, washing a patient section by section without moving them to a tub. The work was slow and intimate. It was also hard on the carer's back, since every turn and lift of the patient was done by hand.

Tatsuno-yu, a neighbourhood sento public bathhouse in Tokyo, 2024. Photo: Kurihaya / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Hospitals and spas began to mechanise bathing in the 20th century through hydrotherapy. In Hot Springs, Arkansas, bathhouses such as the Fordyce had hydrotherapy rooms with spray nozzles, gauges and valve consoles, and the Libbey Physical Medical Center gave thermal baths in a Hubbard tub, a large steel tank shaped so an attendant could reach the patient from the side. The equipment was built for treatment. It also showed that bathing could be done with machines and fixed plumbing.

An attendant gives a thermal bath in a Hubbard tub at the Libbey Physical Medical Center in Hot Springs. Photo: NPS via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Hubbard tanks often came with an overhead hoist that lowered a patient on a stretcher into the water, an early piece of lifting automation in the bathroom. An early attempt at a machine that washes a person by itself appeared at Expo 70 in Osaka, where Sanyo Electric displayed its Ultrasonic Bath, a capsule that washed a person sitting inside it. It never became a product. Research labs later tried robot arms: in 2010 a Georgia Tech team led by Charles Kemp showed its robot Cody wiping a person's limbs in bed.

A patient on a stretcher is readied for Hubbard tank treatment, from the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center collection. Photo: U.S. Army via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The human washing machine and today's care bath robots

Fifty-five years later the capsule came back. Science Co., an Osaka company, built the Mirai Ningen Sentakuki, or human washing machine of the future, for Expo 2025. Its chairman, Yasuaki Aoyama, saw Sanyo's bath on a school trip in fourth grade, and one of the original Sanyo engineers joined the team. The user lies in a pod while water with fine bubbles washes them and air dries them, in about 15 minutes. Sensors track heart rate and adjust the water and the images shown inside. 36Kr reported in December 2025 that the machine costs 60 million yen and is not a consumer product.

Spray hoses and valves in the hydrotherapy room of the Fordyce Bathhouse, Hot Springs, Arkansas. Photo: ilovebutter / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Care bath machines are closer to everyday use. On 16 September 2026 The Korea Times reported on care robots shown in Seoul, including a capsule shower chair from Daewon Inmul that lets bedridden patients bathe with less physical effort from nurses. Seoul's Geumcheon district started a pilot the same week that adds AI robots and home bathing services to its integrated care programme. In China, Shenzhen's Zuowei Tech sold 40 million yuan of smart bathing devices in 2022, and China Daily put bathing assistance robots at 30,000 to 50,000 yuan in 2025. DW covered China's elder care robots on 23 September 2026.

Urban Care Inada, a care facility for older people in Japan, 2021. Photo: Mr.ちゅらさん / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB does not make bathing machines, and no ABB robot washes people. Its robots do cover parts of the problem in factories. The IRB 1300 with Foundry Plus 2 protection is sealed to work in water and dust, and the GoFa CRB 15000 cobot has torque sensors in its six joints so it can feel contact and stop. A bathing cell in which an arm holds a shower head or a sponge would need a sealed arm with force control near skin. Nobody has built one with ABB hardware, so treat it as an idea. Our posts on restroom cleaning robots and elder care assistance cover nearby ground.

An ABB IRB 1300 with Foundry Plus 2 protection, built to handle water and dust. Photo: ABB

Where bathing robots go next, at home and in care homes

Two designs are competing. One is the pod, like the Science Co. machine, which encloses the user and controls water, temperature and drying in one shell. The other is equipment added to an ordinary bathroom, such as a shower chair, a bath lift or an arm on a rail. Pods are easier to make safe because everything happens inside a closed box, but the Expo machine is about 2.5 metres long and 2.6 metres high, far too big for a typical home bathroom. Add on equipment fits existing rooms, but it has to cope with whatever layout it finds.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot at a work table. Photo: ABB

Cost is the first obstacle. A device at 30,000 yuan or more is out of reach for many families and small care homes, and a 60 million yen pod is a showpiece. Safety is harder still, covering water temperature, slipping, skin damage and what happens if power fails while someone is wet and lying down. Dignity cuts both ways: some people would rather be washed by a machine than by a stranger, while others find the idea cold, so care staff will still need to judge who wants which. The machine itself must also be cleaned between users.

ABB's GoFa cobot is guided by hand and stops when it senses contact. Photo: ABB

For factories, bathing robots are a new product to build in small numbers, the kind of job where cells are designed and checked in RobotStudio before parts are cut. A hygienic arm such as the IRB 1200 Hygienic, made for washdown in food plants, shows how industrial robots are already sealed and finished for wet, clean work. For homes and care homes, the near future looks like smarter shower chairs and lifts that cut the lifting nurses do, with full washing pods staying rare and expensive for some years.

An ABB IRB 1200 Hygienic robot picking bananas, a food handling demo of its washdown design. Photo: ABB

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