KR101203669B1 - walking assisting device having user recognition function - Google Patents

Abstract

A walking assistance device having a user recognition function is disclosed. The walking assistance device is a wheel drive unit for controlling at least one of a moving direction and a speed of the walking assistance device by driving the wheel under the control of a controller, a wheel connected to the lower part, and a posture for assisting the user to stably maintain the upper part. The holding aid is connected, the body of which at least one of the vertical inclination and the length of the vertical direction is adjusted from the vertical direction, the user operation unit for notifying the control unit to identify the direction and speed of the user intended, and the user to recognize the And a user recognition unit for notifying the control unit. The control unit controls at least one of a horizontal inclination, a vertical inclination and length of the body, a moving direction, and a speed, which are angles formed by the posture maintaining auxiliary unit, based on the user information recognized by the user recognition unit. The present invention provides the most optimized gait state by adjusting the height of the gait assist device and the inclination of the handle to be suitable for the user's body, and adjusts the speed of the gait assist device to be suitable for the recognized health state of the user. Can be.

Description

Walking assisting device having user recognition function

The present invention relates to a walking aid device for helping the elderly and the disabled to walk, and more particularly, to adjust the height of the walking aid device to recognize the user and to suit the user, and to control the moving speed and the like in an optimized manner for the user. Of course, the present invention relates to a walking assistance device for helping a user to walk safely by detecting an obstacle.

The life expectancy of human beings is getting longer due to the development of technology and economic development. However, unlike the past, where the focus was only on extending life expectancy, it is increasingly interesting to see how long a person lives while maintaining a good quality of life. In other words, the extension of life is important, but there is increasing interest in the quality of life of extended life.

However, how to perform the most basic movements of everyday life is very important for improving the quality of life. For example, a person who is inconvenient to use both hands can't perform basic daily operations such as changing clothes or washing their hair, which makes daily life very uncomfortable and deteriorates the quality of life. do. Therefore, the ability to perform basic daily activities well is the most basic and important factor in improving the quality of life.

In recent years, there is a walking movement in daily life movements, which are getting more and more attention. Often, people don't pay special attention to walking because anyone with a normal body can do it easily, but this is a very complex process in which nerves and skeletal muscle are used collectively. In other words, the walking motion is a continuous and repetitive motion in which one leg maintains a stable state of the standing position while the other leg moves forward. In addition, more than 100 skeletal muscles are complex movements that require coordination with various joints of the upper and lower extremities, and coordination of various physical activities such as breathing and heartbeat. Therefore, it is difficult to significantly improve walking ability in a short time when smooth coordination of complex body organs is not achieved. In addition, when any of the complex organs are deteriorated due to arthritis or abnormalities of the nervous system, the walking ability of the person is significantly lowered and it is difficult to recover easily. In addition, the gait motion is a very important motion in terms of social science in terms of mobility of the disabled and the elderly. Even if a person who can perform other movements smoothly does not move smoothly, the range of activities is reduced by that amount, and the reduced range of activities is directly related to the quality of life of the person. In addition, patients who do not walk properly will have additional complications due to muscle degeneration. In addition, when the walking condition is bad, the center becomes unstable, and thus the fatigue is increased by affecting the equilibrium of each part of the body and breathing and cardiac activity. Therefore, the ability to walk smoothly is the most essential element to improve the quality of life.

Research to assist in this important walking ability has been in progress for a long time. In particular, Europe has been carrying out the TIDE (Technology for Inclusive Design and Equality) program, a comprehensive technical support program for the elderly and the disabled for 10 years since the 1990s, and Korea's silver industry market is expected to reach about 41 trillion won in 2010. do. One such technology is pedestrian aids, which assist users in walking with reduced ability to walk so that they can walk on their own without the help of others, improving their quality of life as well as walking. It plays an important role in preventing accidents that may occur.

However, not everyone obtains the same effect by using the same walking assistance device. For example, it is clear that people with early arthritis symptoms and those who have had joint replacement surgery cannot move at the same speed. However, since the conventional walk assistance apparatus is designed based on an average user, satisfaction of users using the same may vary.

Therefore, the user can recognize the user and adjust the height of the walking aid device and the inclination of the handle so as to best fit the user's body. There is an urgent need for a walking aid that prevents fatal accidents that may occur during walking by moving.

An object of the present invention is to provide a walking assistance device for providing the most optimized walking state to the user by adjusting the height of the walking aid and the inclination of the handle so as to recognize the user to fit the user's body.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a walking assistance device for maximizing the walking motion by maximizing the stability of the user by maximizing the stability of the user by adjusting the speed of the walking assistance device to be suitable for the recognized health state of the user.

One aspect of the present invention for achieving the above object relates to a walking assistance device having a user recognition function, the walking assistance device controls at least one of the direction and speed of the walking assistance device by driving the wheel under the control of the controller. Wheel drive for connecting, the lower part is connected to the wheel and the posture maintenance assistant for assisting the user to maintain the posture on the top, the body is adjusted at least one of the vertical inclination and length of the vertical direction from the vertical direction A user manipulation unit for grasping the direction and speed intended by the user and notifying the control unit, and a user recognition unit for recognizing the user and notifying the control unit. In particular, the controller controls at least one of a horizontal inclination, a vertical inclination and length of the body, a moving direction, and a speed, which are angles formed by the posture maintenance assistant, based on the user information about the user recognized by the user recognition unit. The walking assistance apparatus may further include a peripheral state sensing unit configured to detect and notify a controller of an ambient state including at least one of an obstacle located in a traveling direction of the walking assistance device, a road surface state of a traveling direction, and current weather, and the controller. The controller may further control at least one of a tilt, a length, a moving direction, and a speed of the body based on the surrounding state, and output a warning message when a risk factor is recognized as a result of analyzing the surrounding state. Furthermore, the ambient state detection unit includes at least one of a camera, a laser sensor, an infrared sensor, a temperature sensor, and a humidity sensor for photographing a walk assistance device, and the controller includes a camera, a laser sensor, a radar sensor, an infrared sensor, a temperature. The signal received from at least one of the sensor and the humidity sensor is analyzed to detect obstacles and road conditions. In addition, the walking assistance apparatus according to the present invention further includes a body information detection unit for detecting and transmitting the user's body information to the control unit, the control unit further based on the body information of the inclination, length, progress direction, and speed of the body At least one is controlled and a warning message is output if a risk factor is recognized as a result of analyzing the body information. In particular, the walking assistance apparatus according to the present invention further includes an interface for transmitting and receiving data with the external device, and the control unit transmits driving records and body information to the external device through the interface. Preferably, the body information sensor includes at least one of an electrocardiogram sensor, an electrocardiogram sensor, an acceleration sensor, a body temperature sensor, a blood pressure sensor, and a body fat sensor attached to a user's body to measure body information. In particular, the user recognition unit identifies the RFID card possessed by the user or recognizes the user by using the user's face or fingerprint.

According to the present invention, the height of the walking assistance device and the inclination of the handle may be adjusted to be suitable for the user's body, thereby providing the most optimized walking state to the user.

In addition, it is possible to maximize the stability of the user by adjusting the speed of the walking assistance device to suit the health state of the user recognized by the present invention.

1 is a block diagram conceptually illustrating a walking assistance apparatus according to the present invention.
2 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a walking assistance device according to the present invention.
3A to 3C are diagrams illustrating an operation of sensing the surrounding state by the surrounding state detecting unit 260 according to the present invention.
4 is a diagram illustrating a walking pattern measured using a biometric information sensor.

In order to fully understand the present invention, operational advantages of the present invention, and objects achieved by the practice of the present invention, reference should be made to the accompanying drawings and the accompanying drawings which illustrate preferred embodiments of the present invention.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the present invention can be implemented in various different forms, and is not limited to the embodiments described. In order to clearly describe the present invention, parts that are not related to the description are omitted, and the same reference numerals in the drawings denote the same members.

Throughout the specification, when a part is said to "include" a certain component, it means that it may further include other components, without excluding the other components unless otherwise stated. In addition, the terms "... unit", "... unit", "module", "block", etc. described in the specification mean a unit for processing at least one function or operation, which means hardware, software, or hardware. And software.

1 is a block diagram conceptually illustrating a walking assistance apparatus according to the present invention.

The walk assistance apparatus 100 illustrated in FIG. 1 includes a body 110, a posture maintenance assistant 120, a wheel driver 190, and two wheels 192 and 194. The body 110 may include a user manipulation unit 130, a user recognition unit 140, a peripheral state sensing unit 160, a body information sensing unit 170, and an interface 180 that may transmit and receive a signal with the central control unit 150. ) Is connected.

First, the user recognition unit 140 illustrated in FIG. 1 recognizes a user when the user approaches the walking assistance apparatus 100. In order to recognize a user, the user recognition unit 140 reads a unique ID from a radio frequency identification (RFID) card possessed by the user, identifies the RFID card, and recognizes a pre-registered user by carrying the identified RFID. Can be. Alternatively, the user may be recognized using biometric information such as a fingerprint or a iris fingerprint, or the user may be identified by receiving a unique user number registered for each user. In addition, the user recognition unit 140 may identify the user by recognizing the face of the user.

When the user is identified by the user recognizer 140, the central controller 150 reads user information corresponding to the identified user from a memory (not shown). The user information may include the user's past driving record as well as bio-specific information such as the user's height or waist potential state and the user's health state. The biometric information of the user is used not only to identify the user but also to determine a driving speed suitable for the user.

In addition, the driving speed suitable for the user may be determined with reference to the user's past driving record. For example, when the height of the user is 160cm, the height of the walking assistance device 100 may be lower than that of the user who has a height of 180cm. In addition, even in the case of a user having the same height, it is necessary to maintain a slower running speed in the case of a user with severe spinal dislocation symptoms than a user with relatively mild symptoms.

Information such as your usual stride length and travel speed is stored in your past driving record. For example, even a user who has the same symptoms as the same height may have a difference in personal stride length or walking speed. Given that user A has an average moving speed of 1 m / s and user B has a 2 m / s, moving two users at the same speed is not appropriate. If user A is moved at an average speed of 2 m / s, user A will find it very difficult to follow the speed guided by the walk assistance device 100. In this case, the walking motion of the user A will be a high frequency, not an exercise, and because the physical force is added, the probability of an accident occurring in the user A also increases. As described above, since the users using the walking assistance device 100 are physically weak people, when the accident of falling occurs to them, the damage may be fatal incomparably compared to that of the general public. Therefore, it is very necessary to guide the user in a differential manner for each user by using the user information in the walking assistance apparatus 100 according to the present invention.

The user may determine a desired speed and direction by using the user manipulation unit 130. The user manipulation unit 130 may receive a user input in a button type provided with a button in a desired direction, or may receive the user input in a simple manner such as a joystick. In this case, if the force applied in any direction is recognized by recognizing the force of the user operating the joystick, the speed in the corresponding direction may be increased. In addition, the central controller 150 may adjust the maximum speed using the user information. For example, in the case of the user A described above, even if the user manipulates the user manipulation unit 130 to adjust the maximum speed to be 5 m / s, the central control unit 150 refers to the user information of the user A and the maximum speed is 2.5. If it is more than m / s, the maximum speed can be limited to 2.5 m / s by determining that the risk factor is likely to occur during walking. On the other hand, in the case of user B, the central controller 150 may limit the maximum speed to 4 m / s, which is higher than in the case of user A. As such, the central control unit 150 maximizes the user's convenience and stability by controlling the height of the walking assistance device 100 and the like, as well as the average moving speed and the maximum moving speed, based on the recognized user information.

The surrounding state detecting unit 160 detects a surrounding state of the walking assistance apparatus 100 while the user walks. In the present specification, the peripheral state refers to any external product that may affect the safety of the user in the current situation where the user walks using the walking assistance device 100, such as an obstacle located in the progress direction, a road surface state in the progress direction, and the current weather. It is understood to mean a condition. When the surrounding condition is received from the surrounding condition detecting unit 160, the central control unit 150 changes the driving state of the walking assistance apparatus 100 using the surrounding condition. For example, when an obstacle is detected in front, the central controller 150 may control the wheel driving unit 190 so that the walking assistance device 100 warns the user and automatically avoids the obstacle. In addition, when the road surface is bumpy, the movement speed of the walking assistance device 100 may be reduced, and if a puddle or the like is detected on the road surface, the wheel driving unit 190 may be controlled to warn and to avoid the puddles. In addition, the central controller 150 may detect the current weather, temperature, humidity, and the like, and control the walking assistance apparatus 100 to be suitable for the current weather situation. For example, when the current temperature is low, the walking assistance device 100 to reduce the walking speed by determining that the user is not suitable for walking, or to reduce the walking speed to patients with asthma, etc., when the current humidity is high. Can be controlled.

The body information sensor 170 illustrated in FIG. 1 measures the body state of the user while the user walks and transmits the measured body state to the central controller 150. The body information detected by the body information detector 170 may include basic information such as heart rate, body temperature, and blood pressure, as well as electrocardiogram, electromyography, and acceleration of movement of each part of the body. The body information detected by the body information detecting unit 170 is transmitted to the central control unit 150, and when the risk factor is recognized based on the received body information, the central control unit 150 outputs a warning message and correspondingly assists walking. The speed of the apparatus 100 can be controlled. For example, if it is determined that the user's current blood pressure is excessively high, the central controller 150 may warn to stop walking for a while or reduce the risk by reducing the moving speed of the walking assistance device 100. If the blood pressure of the user falls back to a normal value after a predetermined time after the walking assistance apparatus 100 is stopped, the central controller 150 may instruct the walking assistance apparatus 100 to resume movement. Therefore, the central control unit 150 eliminates a health risk factor that may be suddenly generated by the user while walking.

The interface 180 is responsible for data transmission and reception between the central controller 150 and an external device. For example, the interface 180 may include a universal serial bus (USB) connection terminal to transmit measured body information and driving information of the walking assistance device 100 to an external device. Alternatively, the interface 180 may connect the walk assistance device 100 to an external network such as the Internet. In this case, the measured body information may be transmitted to a server connected to an external network and used to generate a nutrition prescription or exercise prescription suitable for a user.

The body 110 included in the walking assistance device 100 shown in FIG. 1 may automatically adjust its physical properties so that the user can walk most comfortably. Physical properties of the walk assistance device 100 may include a height of the walk assistance device 100, a vertical tilt of the body 110, a length of the posture maintenance assistant 120, a horizontal slope of the posture maintenance assistant 120, and the like. This will be described later in detail using FIG. 2.

2 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a walking assistance device according to the present invention.

The walk assistance device 200 shown in FIG. 2 includes a body 210, a weight relief part 214, a posture maintenance aid 220, a wheel drive 290, and wheels 292, 294, 296, and 298. In addition, the body 210 includes a user manipulation unit 230, a user recognition unit 240, a peripheral state detection unit 260, and a body information detection unit 270 that may transmit and receive a signal with the central control unit 250. Interface 280 is connected.

As illustrated, when the user walks while holding the posture maintenance assistant 220, the walking assistance device 200 recognizes the user to maintain an optimal posture according to the user and controls a walking environment such as a walking speed.

That is, the central control unit 250 may adjust the vertical length and the vertical inclination of the body 210 and the horizontal length and the horizontal inclination of the posture maintenance assistance unit 220 according to the user recognized by the user recognition unit 240.

For example, the central controller 250 may read the recognized height of the user and adjust the length of the body 210 according to the read height. When the length of the body 210 is increased, a user with a large height may conveniently use the walking assistance device 200, and in the case of a user with a small height, the length of the body 210 may be relatively reduced. In addition, the vertical inclination of the body 210 means the angle formed by the body 210 and the vertical direction. If the vertical slope is 0 degrees, this means that the body 210 stands perpendicular to the ground. However, in the case of a user having a small kidney or a severe spinal dislocation symptom, the vertical inclination of the body 210 may be increased so that the user may walk in a state of bowing closer to the ground. In addition, the walking assistance device 200 may reduce weight while the user walks by using the weight relieving unit 214 so as not to apply excessive pressure to the joint. The weight relieving unit 214 has a structure that can hang a wearing (not shown) attached to the user's body. In addition, since the height of the weight relief unit 214 can be adjusted by the hydraulic piston 212 according to the user information, it is possible to adjust the degree of weight to be relaxed. For example, patients immediately after joint surgery may relieve all of their body weight to help rehabilitation, and if a certain amount of time has passed after surgery, the effect of exercise may be enhanced by reducing the weight that is gradually relaxed.

In addition, the central control unit 250 may also adjust the length and horizontal inclination of the posture maintenance assistant 220. In the present specification, the 'posture maintenance assistant' refers to a mechanism that helps the user to comfortably center on the walk assistance apparatus 200 while walking. In FIG. 2, the posture maintaining auxiliary part 220 has a shape of a handle which the user can hold by using both hands, but is not necessarily limited thereto. That is, the posture maintenance assistant 220 may have the form of an armrest that can put both arms for the user who is difficult to move both hands. Therefore, the structure of the posture maintenance assistant 220 shown in FIG. 2 is not limited to the present invention, and it is noted that all the structures that the user can rely on while walking are possible.

The length of the posture maintenance assistant 220 determines the degree of close contact between the user and the walking assistance device 200. As the length of the posture maintenance assistant 220 increases, the distance between the user and the walk assistance device 200 decreases, so that a user with severe abdominal obesity may easily use the walk assistance device 200. That is, the walking assistance apparatus 200 according to the present invention helps to perform a stable walking exercise while improving the user's convenience by adjusting the length and horizontal tilt of the posture maintenance assistant 220 according to the user's body shape and symptoms. In addition, in the present specification, the horizontal inclination of the posture maintenance assistant 220 refers to an angle between the horizontal plane and the posture maintenance assistant 220. For example, if the horizontal inclination is 0, it means that the posture maintenance assistant 220 is completely parallel to the horizontal plane. In this case, the user may rely on the walking assistance apparatus 200 by putting his or her arm on the flat posture maintenance assistant 220. Alternatively, when the walking is first started, the horizontal inclination of the posture maintenance assistant 220 is increased to allow the user to walk quickly by holding the posture maintenance assistant 220 with both hands, and after a predetermined time, the posture maintenance assistant 220 You can also set the horizontal slope to zero so that the user can rest on it.

The posture maintenance assistant 220 shown in FIG. 2 may also include a handbrake (not shown) for stopping the walking assistance device 200 in a pressing situation and a storage stand (not shown) for storing belongings of the user. have. The walk assistance apparatus 200 illustrated in FIG. 2 is shown in a form in which the posture maintenance assistant 220 and the user manipulation unit 230 are separated, but this is for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to limit the present invention. Rather, the user manipulation unit 230 may be embedded in the handle of the posture maintenance assistant 220, or may be embedded in the handle and the handle to operate the walk assistance device 200 by manipulating the handle and the handle, such as steering a two-wheeled vehicle. You may.

The walk assistance apparatus 200 illustrated in FIG. 2 may be designed in an Ackerman driving manner to solve a user's discomfort in operation and to secure a high stability against an emergency. In the Ackermann driving method, the walking assistance apparatus 200 is assumed to rotate based on an instantaneous center of rotation (ICR), and an obstacle avoidance algorithm may be driven based on the ICR.

The body information detector 270 detects the body information of the user while walking, such as blood pressure, body temperature, and heart rate, and transmits it to the central controller 250. Then, the central control unit 250 may output a warning message when the risk factor is recognized based on the transmitted body information. For example, when the heart rate of the user is too high, the central controller 250 may instruct the user to stop walking and rest for a while. In this case, the central controller 250 may refer to previously stored user information. For example, the risk factor may be determined by referring to the current state of health of the user. In addition, the central control unit 250 may additionally control the vertical inclination and length of the body of the body 210, the moving direction, and the speed according to the user's body state. That is, the central control unit 250 controls the wheel driving unit 290 to slow down or stop the speed if the user determines that the user is exhausted by analyzing the ECG, and increases the vertical length of the body 210 and makes the vertical slope equal to zero. The user may comfortably rest against the walking assistance device 200. The body information sensor 270 may be a conductive sensor, an electrocardiogram sensor, an acceleration sensor, a body temperature sensor, a blood pressure sensor, a body fat sensor, or the like, but the present invention is not limited thereto. Rather, any device that can be attached to the user's body or collect various body information by monitoring the user can be included in the body information sensor 270 according to the present invention. The body information detector 270 will be described later in detail in the relevant part of the present specification.

The walk assistance apparatus 200 illustrated in FIG. 2 is illustrated as including four wheels 292, 294, 296, and 298 connected to the frame 282, but the present invention is not limited thereto. Rather, as the number of wheels increases, the stability of the walking assistance device 200 is improved. For example, if you have six or more wheels, you can walk in a stable manner without a lot of shaking, even if the road is bumpy.

3A to 3C are diagrams illustrating an operation of sensing the surrounding state by the surrounding state detecting unit 260 according to the present invention.

The ambient state detection unit 260 of FIG. 2 is implemented by various devices such as a camera, an infrared sensor, a laser sensor, and a radar sensor to detect an obstacle or step difference in a traveling direction. To detect obstacles, the 2D laser finder can be used to apply the time of flight (TOF) principle. That is, the peripheral state detector 260 may measure the distance from which the emitted laser beam is reflected by the obstacle and returns. In addition, VFH (Vector Field Histogram) proposed by Borenstein may be used to avoid obstacles.

3A shows an active vector window generated by a laser scanner. In the illustrated drawing, since only one laser scanner is used, only the front 180 degrees of the 360 degree active vector windows are reconstructed, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

FIG. 3B is data obtained by 180 degrees forward by the laser scanner, and the polar histogram obtained thereby is shown in FIG. 3C.

Based on the generated polar histogram, the walk assistance apparatus determines a space for detecting and avoiding obstacles and performs a steering angle calculation through ICR generation. That is, the presence or absence of an obstacle is determined based on the threshold shown in FIG. 3C, and the direction to avoid is determined by k value and H (k) which are factors of each polar histogram. The algorithm for obstacle detection and avoidance is briefly described as follows.

1) Scan the 2D laser range finder for 180 degrees.

2) If an obstacle is detected, determine the position of the ICR using the polar histogram.

3) Calculate R.

4) Calculate the new steering angle.

5) Determine the speed for the driving wheel of the rear wheel, taking into account the running speed of the walking aid.

6) Drive users to a safe path.

For a more detailed description of the operation shown in FIGS. 3A-3C, such as the Ackermann drive system or the VFH, a paper published on May 31, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference, is "Development of Intelligent Outdoor Walking Aids (1). Step report) ”, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.

Now, an example of a measuring device for transmitting body information to the body information detecting unit shown in FIG. 2 will be described.

First, the body information detector may be implemented as an electromyogram (EMG) / biosignal measurement sensor attached to an arm of a user to measure an EMG signal and a biosignal. The biosignal measuring sensor includes an amplifier for amplifying an analog signal and a processing unit for converting and processing the signal into a digital signal. The processing unit is composed of an electrode attached to a printed circuit board (PCB) and a housing surrounding the same. In addition, the measurement sensor may be wound around the user's arm in the form of a button, and may be waterproofed to be washed after long use. In addition, when the measurement sensor includes a three-dimensional acceleration sensor, it is possible to detect arm movement as shown. Therefore, the driving of the walking assistance device may be controlled by using the sensed arm movement. In this case, the measurement sensor also takes charge of the function as the user operation unit of FIG. 1.

In addition, the measuring sensor may be implemented in the form of an insole that is embedded in the sole of the shoe. The insole can include a sensor and a wireless communication module implemented between the upper and lower layers. When the sensor is an accelerometer, the movement of the user's foot can be monitored in three dimensions, and in the case of a piezoelectric element, the pressure applied when the user's foot touches the ground can be measured. The signal measured by the sensor is transmitted to the central control unit 150 of FIG. 1, and the central control unit may accurately measure a state in which the user currently walks using the received biosignal and estimate the fatigue degree felt by the user. . For example, as the load applied to the piezoelectric element is larger, it may be determined that it is more difficult for the user to walk. Then, the central controller may instruct to decrease the speed of the walking assistance apparatus until the user's fitness is restored. In addition, the central controller may calculate the number of steps of the user, and calculate the total calories consumed by the current user by using the calculated number of steps and the user information.

4 is a diagram illustrating a walking pattern measured using a biometric information sensor.

Figure 4 (a) shows the angle of the foot modeled by the sensor after the user starts walking on the measuring device moving plate, such as a treadmill. The graph indicated by the solid line represents the angle of the foot extracted from the sample data, and the graph indicated by the dotted line represents the angle between the foot and the ground. As shown in (a) of FIG. 4, the user's foot increases from the level parallel to the ground to the maximum value while walking, and then decreases again. The shape of the foot at each of the points A, B, C, D, E, F, G is easily shown in FIGS. 4 (b) and 4 (c).

Referring to Figure 4 (b), it can be seen that the walking pattern of the user when the plate moves to the rear. First, from point C to point D, it can be seen that the user removes the back foot from the plate in order to walk. The process of advancing the detached foot forward is the process from point B to point C, and the process of closing the foot on the plate corresponds to point A to point B.

In addition, referring to Figure 4 (c), it can be seen that the user removes the hind feet to move forward while the plate is moving forward. That is, the process of detaching the back foot corresponds to the point D to the point E, and the process of pushing the detached back foot forward corresponds to the point G from the point E. Comparing Fig. 4 (b) with Fig. 4 (c), it can be seen that the angle of the foot becomes larger when the user moves backward compared to moving forward.

As can be seen from Figure 4, by monitoring the angle and position of the foot using the accelerometer and gyro sensor, it is possible to model the position and angle of the foot during user-specific walking during normal walking operation. As such, when the normal walking motion of the user is modeled, it is possible to accurately detect that an abnormal situation occurs when walking using the walking assistance device.

As described above, the walking assistance apparatus according to the present invention acquires various user specific information of a walking user using various body information sensing apparatuses, and stores the user specific information if the same user uses the walking assistance apparatus after storing the same. The walk assistance apparatus is controlled using the information. Therefore, it is not only convenient for the user to use the walking assistance device but also actively cope with a dangerous situation that may occur when walking.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Therefore, the true technical protection scope of the present invention will be defined by the technical spirit of the appended claims.

The present invention can be applied to a walking assistance device capable of assisting a user having difficulty walking with high stability.

Claims (7)

delete In the walking assistance apparatus having a user recognition function,
A wheel driver for controlling at least one of a moving direction and a speed of the walking assistance device by driving the wheel under the control of a controller;
A body having a wheel connected to the lower part and a posture maintaining auxiliary part connected to the upper part to stably maintain the user's posture, and having at least one of a vertical tilt and a length of the vertical direction formed from the vertical direction;
A user operation unit for notifying the controller by grasping the direction and speed of the user's intended direction; And
A user recognition unit for recognizing a user and notifying the control unit;
The controller may include at least one of a horizontal inclination, the vertical inclination and the length of the body, the moving direction, and the speed of the body, based on user information about the user recognized by the user recognition unit. Characterized in that to control, the walk assistance device,
It further includes a peripheral state detection unit for detecting and notifying the surrounding state including at least one of the obstacle located in the progress direction of the walking assistance device, the road surface state of the progress direction, and the current weather,
The controller is further configured to control at least one of the vertical tilt and the length, the moving direction, and the speed of the body based on the surrounding state, and outputs a warning message when a risk factor is recognized as a result of analyzing the surrounding state. A walking assistance device having a user recognition function, characterized in that. The method of claim 2, wherein the peripheral state detection unit,
At least one of a camera, a laser sensor, a radar sensor, an infrared sensor, a temperature sensor, and a humidity sensor for photographing the periphery of the walking assistance device,
The controller may detect the obstacle and the road surface state by analyzing a signal received from at least one of the camera, the laser sensor, the infrared sensor, the temperature sensor, and the humidity sensor. Gait aids to have. The said walking assistance apparatus of Claim 2 or 3,
Further comprising a body information detecting unit for detecting the body information of the user to pass to the control unit,
The controller is further configured to control at least one of the vertical tilt and the length, the moving direction, and the speed of the body based on the body information, and analyzes the body information, and if a risk factor is recognized as a warning message, A walking assistance device having a user recognition function, characterized in that the output. According to claim 4, The walk assistance device,
Further comprising an interface for transmitting and receiving data with the external device,
The control unit is a walking assistance device having a user recognition function, characterized in that for transmitting the driving record and the body information to the external device through the interface. The method of claim 4, wherein the body information sensor,
A walking assistance device having a user recognition function, comprising at least one of an electrocardiogram sensor, an electrocardiogram sensor, an acceleration sensor, a body temperature sensor, a blood pressure sensor, and a body fat sensor attached to a body of a user to measure body information. The method of claim 2, wherein the user recognition unit,
A walk assistance device having a user recognition function, characterized in that a user identifies an RFID card possessed by a user or recognizes a user using a face or a fingerprint of the user.

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