Abstract
For many elderly, wheeled rollators play an essential role in everyday life’s mobility. In addition, exoskeletons are increasingly used in daily mobility as well as in rehabilitation therapy. We present a motorized rollator to combine the advantages of both support devices. Based on the developed hardware, we design two model-based control concepts. The first relies on distance measurement with ultrasonic sensors, which enables contactless navigation of the rollator, to allow balance training with the exoskeleton. The second control concept enables the balancing of the rollator on its rear wheels as a first step to overcome stairs. Through experiments on the real system, we demonstrate and discuss the functionality and reliability of both control concepts.
Zusammenfassung
Für viele ältere Menschen spielen Rollatoren eine wesentliche Rolle bei der Mobilität im Alltag. Darüber hinaus werden auch Exoskelette zunehmend in der Alltagsmobilität und Rehabilitationstherapie eingesetzt. Um die Vorteile beider Unterstützungssysteme zu kombinieren, stellen wir einen motorisierten Rollator vor. Basierend auf der entwickelten Hardware entwerfen wir zwei modellgestütze Steuerungskonzepte. Das erste basiert auf einer Abstandsmessung mit Ultraschallsensoren und realisiert eine berührungslose Navigation des Rollators, um Balancetraining mit dem Exoskelett zu ermöglichen. Das zweite Regelungskonzept ermöglicht das Ausbalancieren des Rollators auf den Hinterrädern, als ersten Schritt, um in Zukunft Stufen zu überwinden. Durch Experimente am realen System demonstrieren und diskutieren wir die Funktionalität und Zuverlässigkeit beider Regelungskonzepte.
About the authors
Lukas Bergmann was born in Mettingen, Germany, in 1994. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering with a focus on systems and automation from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, in 2015 and 2018, respectively. Since 2019 he has been working as a Ph.D. candidate in the Biomechanical Motion Research Group at the Chair for Medical Information Technology, RWTH Aachen University. His major research interests are rehabilitation robotics, control engineering, and mechatronic systems.
Lea Hansmann was born in Herdecke, Germany, in 1997. She received the bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with a focus on Biomedical Engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, in 2019. Since 2019 she has been studying for the master’s degree in electrical engineering with a focus on systems and automation.
Steffen Leonhardt (SM’06) was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1961. He received the M.S. degree in computer engineering from the University at Buffalo, NY, USA, the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, the M.D. degree in medicine from J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, and the Dr.h.c. (Honorary) degree from Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2003, he was appointed a Full Professor and the Head of the Chair for Medical Information Technology at RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany. In 2018, he was appointed a Distinguished Professor with IIT Madras, Chennai, India. He serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE journal of biomedical & health informatics and ieee transactions on biomedical circuits & systems.
Chuong Ngo received the master’s degree in electrical engineering and information technology from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, in 2011, and the Ph.D. in medical information technology from RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, in 2019. Since 2018, he has been the Head of the Biomechanical Motion Research Group, Medical Information Technology, RWTH Aachen University. His main research interests include respiratory modeling and diagnostics, rehabilitation robotics, control, and gait analysis.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the students Phillip Zunzer and Mert Özcan for their support in the context of the wheelie control. Parts of this work have already been presented at the 26th International Student Conference on Electrical Engineering (POSTER) 2022 in Prague.
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Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the foundation Stiftung Universitätsmedizin Aachen.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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