• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.939-947
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• 2010

With the rising numbers of elderly and disabled people, the demand for welfare services using a robotic system and not involving human effort is likewise increasing. This study deals with a mobile-robot system combined with a BWS (Body Weight Support) system for gait rehabilitation. The BWS system is designed via the kinematic analysis of the robot's body-lifting characteristics and of the walking guide system that controls the total rehabilitation system integrated in the mobile robot. This mobile platform is operated by utilizing the AGV (Autonomous Guided Vehicle) driving algorithm. Especially, the method that integrates geometric path tracking and obstacle avoidance for a nonholonomic mobile robot is applied so that the system can be operated in an area where the elderly users are expected to be situated, such as in a public hospital or a rehabilitation center. The mobile robot follows the path by moving through the turning radius supplied by the pure-pursuit method which is one of the existing geometric path-tracking methods. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the real experiments those are conducted for path tracking with static- and dynamic-obstacle avoidance. Finally, through the EMG (Electromyography) signal measurement of the subject, the performance of the proposed system in a real operation condition is evaluated.