Trajectory planning and control of passive robot walking helper for moving obstacle avoidance

Along with the growth of elderly population, robot walking helpers play an important role in assisting their activities in daily lives. The passive type of robot walking helper moves only by user-applied forces with controlled brakes used to steer the walker. It can safely assist the elderly in walking. Since the environment may be with moving obstacles, it is important for the passive walking helper to move away from these moving obstacles. In this paper, we propose using the optimization method for trajectory planning and control of the passive robot walking helper. The collision-free trajectory and the brake torque can be efficiently derived for safely guiding the user to the desired position. Simulations are performed to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.