Development of a Comfort-Based Motion Guidance System for a Robot Walking Helper
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Development of a Comfort-Based Motion Guidance System for a Robot Walking Helper Kuu-young Young 1 & Shu-Ling Cheng 2
&
Chun-Hsu Ko 3 & Hao-Wei Tsou 1
Received: 28 November 2019 / Accepted: 2 February 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract In research on providing motion assistance for elderly care, the robot walking helper is considered to be able to maintain their vitality. For its practicality, one issue of interest is its feasible path planning for guidance. Inspired by the concept of including human factors for path planning previously proposed, in this paper, we develop such a motion guidance system for the robot walking helper. We first selected the human factors most vital for the elderly and also public via an Internet survey, and then developed a corresponding path planning algorithm and control strategy for its realization. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system. Key contributions of the paper lie on (a) one of the few studies that include human factors into path planning of the robot walking helper and (b) a more thorough consideration on comfort with both physical and psychological factors corresponding to elderly and public preference included. Keywords Comfort-based path planning . Robot walking helper . Motion guidance
1 Introduction Elderly care has received much attention in facing the aging society. Due to gradual decay in their walking ability, various types of devices have been developed for providing motion assistance for elders. With its appealing feature of enabling them to exercise, the robot walking helper is favored by the elders who can still walk [1–4]. To make it practical for daily
* Shu-Ling Cheng [email protected] Kuu-young Young [email protected] Chun-Hsu Ko [email protected] Hao-Wei Tsou [email protected] 1
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 University Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
2
Department of Multimedia and Game Developing Management, Far East University, No.49, Zhonghua Rd., Xinshi Dist., Tainan City 74448, Taiwan
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, I-Shou University, No.1, Sec. 1, Syuecheng Rd., Dashu District, Kaohsiung City 84001, Taiwan
activities, its feasible path planning for guidance is very crucial, which motivates this study. Most of the previous researchers have focused on the effectiveness of path planning, e.g., finding the shortest path or minimum-time trajectory in static or dynamic environments. Some algorithms are developed for obstacle avoidance, such as those involving rapidly-exploring random tree, potential field, velocity obstacles [5], etc. However, seldom of them deal with the user’s experience, comfort. As the potential users for the robot walking helper are elders, path planning should take human factors into account. Among previous research that involves human factors, Morales et al. proposed a path planner that improved the feeling of comfort of the passenger, and applied it to an autonomous robotic wheelchair [6]. Patompak et al. point
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