Smart walker controlled with "legs"
Update:15-03-2022
Summary:
Walking is one of the most common behaviors in human daily life, and it is an important guarantee for human beings to live independently. However, ne...
Walking is one of the most common behaviors in human daily life, and it is an important guarantee for human beings to live independently. However, neurological diseases such as stroke sequelae and Parkinson's disease can lead to impairment of human motor function and decline in walking ability, which seriously affects the quality of life and health of patients.
As an auxiliary walking device, a walker can assist the human body to support body weight, maintain balance and walk, and is a necessary life aid for patients with severe sports injuries.
Common walkers are mainly simple support structures, and some walkers also have wheels at the end. These walkers are all passive (ie, no motor drive), and walkers without wheels require the user to constantly lift it up during walking to adjust the proper posture to help themselves move forward, while walkers with wheels The walker requires the user to constantly use the "brake" function to switch the walker between support and movement. This brings a certain physical burden to the user, and some users may also cause secondary injury due to improper operation.
With the advancement of automation technology, some researchers have begun to design some walking aids with driving function. These active walking aids have motors, thus solving the problem of the burden that passive walking aids bring to users.
The early active walkers mainly controlled the progress of the walkers through joysticks, buttons, touch screens, etc. Although the burden of the user is reduced to a certain extent, it also introduces a new problem: the user needs to devote a certain amount of energy to the control, which distracts the attention to a certain extent, thereby increasing the probability of accidents.
The main principle of the force feedback walker is to place a force sensor at the position where the user interacts with the walker (usually the armrest), and through some force position control methods (such as impedance control, admittance control, etc.) The interaction force between the devices is maintained at a certain level, so that the walker can automatically follow the footsteps of people, and at the same time provide the user's body support, which greatly reduces the user's burden.
At the same time, researchers usually add the function of brakes, which, if a large force is detected, will stop the movement of the walker, thus protecting the user from falling. For example, the walker developed by researchers such as Lee can follow the movement of the walker by detecting the torque exerted by the user on the armrest; researchers such as Mun can realize the walker by detecting the interaction force between the torso and the walker. follow.
