Development of Intelligent Passive Cane controlled by servo brakes

In this paper, we propose an intelligent cane developed based on passive robotics concept for supporting the elderly and the disabled persons who have difficulty walking. The intelligent passive cane (IP Cane) is controlled by servo brakes attached to the wheels and intrinsically safe for humans, because it cannot move unintentionally, i.e., it has no driving actuators. In addition, the IP cane provides many kinds of functions by appropriately controlling the torque of wheels with servo brakes. In this paper, we propose an environmentally adaptive motion control algorithm that provides path following function, and a human adaptive motion control algorithm that changes motion characteristic of IP cane to adapt to user difficulty and states.