Abstract
With the current increase of the elderly population, locomotion disabilities cases are growing, and hence there is a need for lightweight, minimally intrusive, locomotion aiding devices. Bulky devices, often used in hospitals and domestic environments, namely during recovering and rehabilitation phases, tend to create difficulties to the users.
This paper describes a robotic cane to assist people with mild locomotion disabilities, e.g., in the final stages of rehabilitation processes, helping users to maintain and recover balance in standing and walking situations. Moreover, the lightweight characteristics of the device enable its use in tight spaces (as often found in domestic environments).
The device has unicycle kinematics and adapts its movement to the state of the user. The mathematical model, control, and hardware are detailed in the paper. Performance is assessed through experiments with real users with and without mobility impairments. The results obtained strongly confirm the viability of the concept.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lovejoy, C.O.: Evolution of human walking. Sci. Am. 259(5), 118–125 (1988)
Winter, D.A.: Biomechanics and Motor Control of Human Movement. 4th (edn) John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken (2009)
Fukuda, T., Huang, J., Di, P., Sekiyama, K.: Motion control and Fall Detection of Intelligent Cane Robot. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12922-8_12
Moreira, R., Alves, J., Matias, A., Santos, C.: Smart and assistive walker - asbgo: rehabilitation robotics: a smart-walker to assist ataxic patients. Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 1170, 37–68 (2019)
Ohnuma, T., Lee, G., Chong, N.Y.: Particle filter based feedback control of JAIST active robotic walker. In: Proceedings - IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp. 264–269 (2011)
Rentschler, A.J., Simpson, R., Cooper, R.A., Boninger, M.L.: Clinical evaluation of Guido robotic walker. J. Rehabil. Res. Dev. 45(9), 1281–1294 (2008)
Neto, A.F., Elias, A., Cifuentes, C., Rodriguez, C., Bastos, T., Carelli, R.: Intelligent Assistive Robots, vol. 106 (2015)
Grondin, S.L., Li, Q.: Intelligent control of a smart walker and its performance evaluation. In: IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, pp. 1–6 (2013)
Jun, H.G., et al.: Walking and sit-to-stand support system for elderly and disabled. In: IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (2011)
Schraft, R.D., Schaeffer, C., May, T.: Care-O-bot™: the concept of a system for assisting elderly or disabled persons in home environments. IECON Proc. (Ind. Electron. Conf.) 4, 2476–2481 (1998)
Naeem, M.A., Assal, S.F.: Development of a 4-DOF cane robot to enhance walking activity of elderly. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part C J. Mech. Eng. Sci. 0(0), 1–19 (2019)
Shim, I., Yoon, J.: A human robot interaction system RoJi. IEEE/ASME Int. Conf. Adv. Intell. Mech. AIM, 2, 723–728 (2003)
Spenko, M., Yu, H., Dubowsky, S.: Robotic personal aids for mobility and monitoring for the elderly. IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng. 14, 344–351 (2006)
Wang, H., Sun, B., Wu, X., Wang, H., Tang, Z.: An intelligent cane walker robot based on force control. In: 2015 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Technology in Automation, Control and Intelligent Systems, IEEE-CYBER 2015, pp. 1333–1337 (2015)
Van Lam, P., Fujimoto, Y.: Completed hardware design and controller of the robotic cane using the inverted pendulum for walking assistance. In: IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics, pp. 1935–1940 (2017)
Stramel, D.M., Carrera, R.M., Rahok, S.A., Stein, J., Agrawal, S.K.: Effects of a person-following light-touch device during overground walking with visual perturbations in a virtual reality environment. IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 4(4), 4139–4146 (2019)
Trujillo-León, A., Ady, R., Reversat, D., Bachta, W.: Robotic cane controlled to adapt automatically to its user gait characteristics. Front. Robot. AI 7(8), 1–13 (2020)
Ady, R., Bachta, W., Bidaud, P.: Development and control of a one-wheel telescopic active cane. In: Proceedings of the IEEE RAS and EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, pp. 461–466 (2014)
Lemos, J.M.: Controlo No Espaço De Estados. 1 edn. IST Press, Hamilton (2019)
Neves, G.: Lightweight locomotion assistant for people - Technical Report. Technical report (2020). https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ejZNiFQvWk5BZtg9TfmJOETJh-o_PnYe/view?usp=sharing. Accessed 27 Dec 2020
Matheson, L.N., Verna, J., Dreisinger, T.E., Leggett, S., Mayer, J.: Age and gender normative data for lift capacity. Work 49(2), 257–269 (2014)
Barbieri, F.A., Vitorio, R.: Locomotion and Posture in Older Adults: The Role of Aging and Movement Disorders (2017)
Iosa, M., Fusco, A., Morone, G., Paolucci, S.: Development and decline of upright gait stability. Front. Aging Neurosci. 6(2), 1–12 (2014)
Vadakkepat, P., Goswami, D.: Biped locomotion: stability, analysis and control. Int. J. Smart Sens. Intell. Syst. 1(1), 187–207 (2008)
Acknowledgements
This research was partially supported by project LARSyS-FCT Project UIDB/50009/2020, Serviços Partilhados do Ministério da Saúde (SPMS), and Agrupamento de Centros de Saúde Loures-Odivelas (ACES Loures-Odivelas).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Neves, G., Sequeira, J.S., Santos, C. (2022). Lightweight Locomotion Assistant for People with Mild Disabilities. In: Chugo, D., Tokhi, M.O., Silva, M.F., Nakamura, T., Goher, K. (eds) Robotics for Sustainable Future. CLAWAR 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 324. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86294-7_41
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86294-7_41
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-86293-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-86294-7
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)