Abstract
A three-wheeled omnidirectional cane robot is designed for aiding the elderly walking. Possible walking modes are analyzed and a corresponding hybrid model is constructed to describe walking behavior. A concept called intentional direction is presented to denote the moving intention of a human. Based on experiments and some assumptions, dynamic model of intentional direction is obtained as well as its online estimation method. A new admittance control scheme is presented based on intentional direction, which provides natural and intuitive human machine interface. Experiment results show the effectiveness of the design.
