Brake Control Assist on a Four-Castered Walker for Old People
ICCHP '08 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs
Data-centric support of a smart walker in a ubiquitous-computing environment
Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Systems and Networking Support for Health Care and Assisted Living Environments
Motion control of passive mobile robot consisting of casters with servo brakes
IROS'09 Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE/RSJ international conference on Intelligent robots and systems
Motion control of passive dance partner robot by using servo brakes
ROBIO'09 Proceedings of the 2009 international conference on Robotics and biomimetics
Force-guidance of a compliant omnidirectional non-holonomic platform
Robotics and Autonomous Systems
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We propose a new intelligent walker based on passive robotics that assists the elderly, handicapped people, and the blind who have difficulty in walking. We developed a prototype of the robot technology walker (RT walker), a passive intelligent walker that uses servo brakes. The RT walker consists of a support frame, two casters, two wheels equipped with servo brakes, and it has passive dynamics that change with respect to applied force/moment. This system is intrinsically safe for humans, as it cannot move unintentionally, i.e., it has no driving actuators. In addition, the RT walker provides a number of navigational features, including good maneuverability, by appropriately controlling the torque of servo brakes based on RT. We propose a human adaptive motion control algorithm that changes the apparent dynamics to adapt to user difficulties, and an environmentally adaptive motion control algorithm, which incorporates environmental information to provide obstacle/step avoidance and gravity compensation functions. The proposed control algorithms are experimentally applied to the RT walker to test their validity.