Smart Walker Control through the Inference of the User’s Command Intentions

In this work is presented the NeoASAS walker including its conceptual design, implementation and validation with a new interface approach integrated. This interface is based on a joystick and it is intended to extract the user’s movement intentions. Eleven healthy users performed preliminary sets of experiments with the walker, which showed the sensibility of the joystick to extract command intentions from the user. These signals presented a higher frequency component that was attenuated by a Benedict-Bordner filter. Then, an approach to the control architecture was developed, in order to obtain stable and safe user assistance. This control architecture is based on a fuzzy logic control that allows the control of the walkers’ motors. Thus, an assistive device to provide safety and natural manoeuvrability was conceived and offers a certain degree of intelligence in assistance and decision-making. The motivation is that this will contribute to improve rehabilitation purposes by promoting ambulatory daily exercises and thus extend users’