Adaptive Navigation Control of an Active Smart Walker

The rapid increase of elderly population all over the world has determined an enhanced attention to their needs: among the others, mobility is one of the most important human skills to support. In this work we propose a prototype of an active smart walker featuring obstacle avoidance and autonomous navigation capabilities, which is meant to assist the elderly people during the walk. The proposed system is able to plan and move in a known environment, adapting its behavior according to the presence of the user. The proposed solution has been widely tested in its different operating modes in a real setting.