The assistive walker using hand haptics — The design of the prototype

The purpose of this research is to develop the sight assistive walker using hand haptics information. In order to realize user´s active environmental recognition, the proposed system has passive actuators instead of active actuators. This system is something like a cane, and it has a small mobile platform on its tip. The small platform is equipped with some wheels and generates brake forces. And the generated force is transmitted to the user´s hand through the grip attached to the walker. The system configurations are as follows. The Laser range finder is used for environmental sensing. The powder brakes are used for generating passive brake forces. In order to let the mobile platform move both lateral and back-forward, the four omni-directional wheels are adopted. By generating passive brake force based on the distance to the obstacles in the moving direction of the system, user can recognize the environment based on the hand haptics information. In addition, user has to walk by him/herself, therefore the user´s intention is indispensable. In particular, this paper shows the design concept, system configuration and outline of the prototype.