Development of a Smart Walker for People with Disabilities and Elderlies

CARLOS VALADÃO; CARLOS CIFUENTES; ANSELMO FRIZERA; RICARDO CARELLI; TEODIANO BASTOS

San Carlos de Bariloche

Simposio; XV Reunión de Trabajo en Procesamiento de la Información y Control, RPIC 2013; 2013

Universidad Nacional de Cuyo

Damages caused by lack of mobility are numerous and compromise severely the quality of life of the affected people, since mobility is an important faculty of the humans. On the other hand, people with disabilities, who cannot have a natural and healthy gait, or suffer from any disease related to locomotion, can see their lives severely compromised and their quality of life can get worse throughout the time. The aim of this work is to develop a smart walker to help people suffering from some kinds of disability to recover their strength and have a higher level of independency. The developed walker provides safety and a more natural human gait through the information provided by the laser sensor. Several experiments were carried out with this smart walker with a group of volunteers with arthrosis and healthy people, and results have shown the good performance of the proposed controller.