A mobility aid for the support to walking and object transportation of people with motor impairments

In this paper we describe a motorised rollator which aims at supporting people with motor impairments while walking and transporting objects. The prototype presented here incorporates a few additional functions, including the force enhancement to the user in the direct control mode, and the ability to follow the user at a distance, with or without collision avoidance, in the follow-me mode. The user input device for the direct control mode is composed of bilateral grips, equipped with strain gage force sensors, whose output signals are used for motor speed control. The follow-me mode is built around a trilateration system based on ultrasonic and infrared sensing technologies; the system activates a user-worn transponder for person tracking. We discuss both the motivations behind the control modes of interest and the technical solutions we have devised for their implementation. The results of some preliminary experiments are also presented and discussed, to show the feasibility of the approach.