Development Of A Rehabilitation Mobility Assistive Device

The aim of the overall research presented here was to investigate the motion of a wheeled mobile robot in an indoor (structured) setting while following a pre-set trajectory. An example of an application for this research would be automated maneuvering of a smart power wheelchair in a health care setting, such as a hospital, which would benefit the aging Canadian population. For the specific research reported here, the aim was to investigate the mobility of an assistive device for Sit-to-Stand (STS) operation and walking. A rehab robot was developed and was attached to a wheeled mobile robot to accomplish STS operation and to help walk a patient for rehabilitation. Four major phases of this research are: (i) design of the rehab robot, (ii) development of the control algorithm, (iii) experimentation, and (iv) navigation of the mobile robot and the rehab walker (robot). This research project can be extended to lower limb rehabilitation and design of a smart walker. It intensively studied current research and projects, designed a rehab robot and four control algorithms to help people in both STS and walking processes. Experiments were implemented, and the results indicated the effectiveness of the control algorithms and the prescribed navigation algorithm. According to the results, this project achieved the original goals to assist people in standing up and walking, and to navigate to a pre-set location.