Abstract
This paper explains the development of an electric cart that helps the elderly maintain or improve their physical strength. Unlike commercially available ones, it has a pedal unit that provides some exercise for a user in training his lower limbs. An impedance model describes the feeling of pushing the pedals. The largest pedal load is determined based on a pedaling experiment. An H ∞ controller is designed for each of the largest pedal load and virtually no load. A control law, which is based on the concept of dynamic parallel distributed compensation, is designed using the rating of perceived exertion of a driver as a criterion to choose a pedal load between the largest and almost zero. Five university students and twelve elderly people participated experiments to verify the system design and the validity of the system.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Okamura Y. Mainstreaming gender and aging in the SDGs. Ambassador and Deputy Representative of Japan to the United Nations at a Side Event to the High Level Political Forum, 2016. http://www.un.emb-japan.go.jp/jp/ statements/okamura071316.html
Cabinet Office, Goverment of Japan. Annual Report on the Aging Society: 2016 (Summary) (in Japanese). 2017. http://www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/whitepaper/w-2013/zenbun/25pdf index.html
She J, Ohyama Y, Kobayashi H. Master-slave electric cart control system for maintaining/improving physical strength. IEEE Trans Robotics, 2006, 22: 481–490
She J, Yokota S, Du E Y. Automatic heart-rate-based selection of pedal load and control system for electric cart. Mechatronics, 2013, 23: 279–288
She J, Wu F, Mita T, et al. Design of a new lower-limb rehabilitation machine. J Adv Comput Intel Intel Inform, 2017, 23: 409–416
Satoh M. Ningen Kougaku Kizyun Suuchi Suusiki Binran (Handbook of Ergonomic Standards, Statistics, and Numerical Formulae) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Gihodo Shuppan Company Limited, 1994
Hill D C, Ethans K D, Macleod D A, et al. Exercise stress testing in subacute stroke patients using a combined upperand lower-limb ergometer. Arch Phys Med Rehabil, 2005, 86: 1860–1866
Borg G. Borg’s Perceived Exertion and Pain Scales. Champaigne: Human Kinetics, 1998
Salvendy G. Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics. 2nd ed. New York: Willy, 1997
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). JICA Report: Final Report on Information Collection and Confirmation Investigation of Aging Problem in China. 2014. http://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/211/211/21110512153276.html
Peng L, Hou Z G, Peng L, et al. Robot assisted rehabilitation of the arm after stroke: prototype eesign and clinical evaluation. Sci China Inf Sci, 2017, 60: 073201
Hou Z, Zhao X, Cheng L, et al. Robot recent advances in rehabilitation robots and intelligent assistance systems (in Chinese). Acta Autom Sin, 2016, 42: 1765–1779
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (Grant Nos. 18560259, 26350673), and partially by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant No. 16H02883). This work was also supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61473313, 61210011), Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 2015CFA010), and the 111 Project of China (Grant No. B17040).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Electronic supplementary material
Supplementary material, approximately 27.1 MB.
Supplementary material, approximately 304 MB.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
She, J., Ohyama, Y., Wu, M. et al. Development of electric cart for improving walking ability — application of control theory to assistive technology. Sci. China Inf. Sci. 60, 123201 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-017-9261-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11432-017-9261-1