Development and control of a one-wheel telescopic active cane

Population ageing calls for innovative solutions to increase daily living autonomy. Since people autonomy relies on their mobility capabilities, several robotized walking aids i.e. walkers and canes, mainly including navigation functions, have been developed. The existing robotized canes generally consist in statically stable mobile platforms equipped with a rod and a handle. This design alters the basic characteristics of original canes i.e. their weight-lightness and compactness. In this paper, a one-wheel telescopic active cane closer to the original cane concept is presented. Its control law and synchronization with the walking cycle is also given along with experimental results.