Takanori Ohnuma

Design and control of JAIST active robotic walker

This paper presents the design and control of a novel assistive robotic walker that we call “JAIST active robotic walker (JARoW)”. JARoW is developed to provide potential users with sufficient ambulatory capability in an efficient, cost-effective way. Specifically, our focus is placed on how to allow easier maneuverability by creating a natural interface between the user and JARoW. For the purpose, we develop a rotating infrared sensor to detect the user’s lower limb movement. The implementation details of the JARoW control algorithms based on the sensor measurements are explained, and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is verified through experiments. Our results confirmed that JARoW can autonomously adjust its motion direction and velocity according to the user’s walking behavior without requiring any additional user effort.

Walking Intent-Based Movement Control for JAIST Active Robotic Walker

This paper presents a novel interactive control for our assistive robotic walker, the JAIST Active Robotic Walker (JARoW), developed for elderly people in need of assistance. The aim of our research is to recognize characteristics of the users gait and to generate the movement of JARoW accordingly. Specifically, the proposed control enables JARoW to accurately generate the direction and velocity of its movement in a way that corresponds to the users variable walking behaviors. The algorithm and implementation of the control are explained in detail, and the effectiveness and usability of JARoW are verified through extensive experiments in everyday environments.

JAIST Robotic Walker control based on a two-layered Kalman filter

This paper presents a new control scheme of JAIST Active Robotic Walker (JARoW) developed to provide elderly people with sufficient ambulatory capability. Toward its practical use, our focus is placed on how to allow easier and reliable maneuverability by creating a natural user interface. Specifically, our challenge lies in providing a well-functioning controller by detecting what the user wants to do or their intentions. A Kalman filter based tracking scheme is realized to estimate and predict the locations of the users legs and body in real time. The feedback control can then adjust the motions of JARoW corresponding to the actual users walking behaviors. Our experiments confirm that JARoW can autonomously adjust its motion direction and velocity without requiring any additional control inputs.

Particle filter based feedback control of JAIST Active Robotic Walker

We present a new control scheme of JAIST Active Robotic Walker (JARoW) developed to provide potential users such as the elderly with sufficient ambulatory capability. Toward its practical use, we tackle JARoWs easy and reliable maneuverability by creating a natural user interface between a user and JARoW. Specifically, our focus is placed on how to realize the natural and smooth movement of JARoW despite different gait parameters of users. For this purpose, a particle filtered interface function (PFIF) is proposed to estimate and predict the locations of the users legs and body. Then, the simple feedback motion control function adjusts the motions of JARoW corresponding to the estimation and prediction. Experimental results show that the proposed control scheme can be quite satisfactory for practical use without requiring any additional user effort.

Particle filter based lower limb prediction and motion control for JAIST Active Robotic Walker

This paper presents an interactive control for our assistive robotic walker, the JAIST Active Robotic Walker (JARoW), developed for elderly people in need of walking assistance. The focus of our paper is placed on how to estimate the users walking parameters by sensing the locations of lower limbs and to predict his or her walking patterns. For this purpose, a particle-filter-based prediction technique and a motion controller are developed to help JARoW smoothly generate the direction and velocity of its movements in a way that reflects the prediction. The proposed scheme and its implementation are described in detail, and outdoor experiments are performed to demonstrate its effectiveness and feasibility in everyday environments.

Development of JARoW-II active robotic walker reflecting pelvic movements while walking

This paper addresses the problem of a novel walking assist scheme considering pelvic movements. Generally, pelvic motion includes pelvic tilt, pelvic rotation, and lateral pelvic displacement. When a human walks, the pelvis is meant to both tilt and rotate. Specifically, rotational movement on the pelvis’ transverse plane and tilting movement on its coronal plane are related to stride length and step width in walking and center-of-gravity swaying in the left-and-right direction, respectively. With these considerations, we introduce the innovative design of our second generation assist robotic walker (JARoW-II) for elderly people in need of supervision. And, this paper proposes a pelvic based walking-support control technique employing JARoW-II. By facilitating pelvic movements while walking, we try to enhance and/or maintain ambulatory performances such as stride length. As another important feature, the scheme is realized without use of specific manual controls or additional equipment. In detail, JARoW-II allows to accurately generate both the direction and location of walking movement and the pelvic movement in a way that corresponds to the user’s walking steps. In this paper, the implementation details based on the walking-support scheme are explained, and the effectiveness of the scheme by using JARoW-II is verified through extensive experiments in everyday environments.