Passive-type intelligent walking support system "RT Walker"

Abstract

We propose a concept of a new walking support system based on passive robotics for supporting elderly people, handicapped people, and blind people who have difficulties in walking, and develop a prototype of new walking support system referred to as RT Walker. RT Walker consists of a support frame, two casters, and two wheels with servo brakes, and has a passive dynamics with respect to the force/moment applied to it, because it does not have any actuators for driving it. RT Walker would be a system with many functions and a good maneuverability by controlling the brake torques of servo brakes appropriately based on Robot Technologies (RT). In this paper, we propose motion control algorithms of RT Walker for changing its apparent dynamics to adapt to the difficulties of the user, and for moving based on the information of an environment.