Authors:
Masahiro Onozawa
1
;
Sho Yokota
1
;
Daisuke Chugo
2
and
Hiroshi Hashimoto
3
Affiliations:
1
Toyo University, Japan
;
2
Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan
;
3
Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, Japan
Keyword(s):
Personal Mobility, Assist, Walking, Electric Cart, Walker.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Human-Machine Interfaces
;
Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics
;
Mechatronics Systems
;
Robotics and Automation
Abstract:
This paper presents Personal Mobility with assistive Walker (PM-W). PM-Wis consists of handle, handle post,
position adjustable saddle, and two inwheel motors. The feature of PM-W is two mobile modes: ”walking
assist mode” and ”vehicle mode”. In ”walking assist mode”, PM-W assists user’s walking by driving two
wheels while user saddles on the seat and walks. In ”vehicle mode”, user controls PM-W like an electric bike
or conventional senior cart. Thus, a certain control interface is needed in ”vehicle mode”. Therefore, this
paper develops the interface for ”vehicle mode”. The proposed interface uses the bending strain at the root
of the handle post, because the handle should not have any moving parts on it such as throttle lever or stick
controller for supporting elderly’s stable posture. In order to verify the operability of this interface, the basic
experiment was conducted. From the results of the experiment, it is appropriate that the interface is adopted
for ”vehicle mod
e”, because it can be regarded that the operability of proposed interface is equal to or more
than the conventional interface.
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