Prototype of Robotic Device for Mobility Assistance for the Elderly in Urban Environments

Sensors

Marley Vellasco¹  Daniel Leite²  Karla Figueiredo³ 

[1] Rio de Janeiro, 20550-900, Brazil;Department of Electrical Engineering, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, 22451-900 Brazil;Department of Informatics and Computer Science, Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ);

关键词: robotic rollator walker;    fuzzy logic;    autonomous navigation;    outdoor environment;    elderly;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s20113056

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This study aims to develop a prototype of an autonomous robotic device to assist the locomotion of the elderly in urban environments. Among the achievements presented are the control techniques used for autonomous navigation and the software tools and hardware applied in the prototype. This is an extension of a previous work, in which part of the navigation algorithm was developed and validated in a simulated environment. In this extension, the real prototype is controlled by an algorithm based on fuzzy logic to obtain standalone and more-natural navigation for the user of the device. The robotic device is intended to guide an elderly person in an urban environment autonomously, although it also has a manual navigation mode. Therefore, the device should be able to navigate smoothly without sudden manoeuvres and should respect the locomotion time of the user. Furthermore, because of the proposed environment, the device should be able to navigate in an unknown and unstructured environment. The results reveal that this prototype achieves the proposed objective, demonstrating adequate behaviour for navigation in an unknown environment and fundamental safety characteristics to assist the elderly.

【 授权许可】

Unknown