Reimagining robotic walkers for real-world outdoor play environments with insights from legged robots: a scoping review

Abstract

Purpose

For children with mobility impairments, without cognitive delays, who want to participate in outdoor activities, existing assistive technology (AT) to support their needs is limited. In this review, we investigate the control and design of a selection of robotic walkers while exploring a selection of legged robots to develop solutions that address this gap in robotic AT.

Method

We performed a comprehensive literature search from four main databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore. The keywords used in the search were the following: “walker”, “rollator”, “smart walker”, “robotic walker”, “robotic rollator”. Studies were required to discuss the control or design of robotic walkers to be considered. A total of 159 papers were analyzed.

Results

From the 159 papers, 127 were excluded since they failed to meet our inclusion criteria. The total number of papers analyzed included publications that utilized the same device, therefore we classified the remaining 32 studies into groups based on the type of robotic walker used. This paper reviewed 15 different types of robotic walkers.

Conclusions

The ability of many-legged robots to negotiate and transition between a range of unstructured substrates suggests several avenues of future consideration whose pursuit could benefit robotic AT, particularly regarding the present limitations of wheeled paediatric robotic walkers for children’s daily outside use.

IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION

• Children with lower limb disabilities can benefit from assistive technology designed for daily usage in outdoor surroundings.

• An extension of existing robotic assistive technology that allows the user to travel safely on irregular surfaces both indoors and outdoors is needed.

• Approaches used to solve research problems in the field of robotics (outside of the rehabilitation area) can be used to address problems that robotic assistive technology currently faces.

• There is a need for more research on the development of robotic assistive technology for children with mobility impairments without cognitive delays.

Keywords:

• Assistive technology
• robotics
• mobility
• paediatric rehabilitation
• walker
• rollator
• smart walker

Acknowledgement

We thank Sonia F. Roberts for her keen insights in the early formulation of this review.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported bythe author(s).

Additional information

Funding

We thank the National Science Foundation (NSF) for supporting the first author through a Graduate Research Fellowship award. This research was also sponsored in part by departmental funds from the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department of the University of Pennsylvania. This research was also supported in part by ONR grant [N00014-16-1-2817], a Vannevar Bush Fellowship held by DK, sponsored by the Basic Research Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.