This study aims to develop a prototype of an autonomous robotic device to assist the locomotion of the elderly in urban environments. Among the achievements presented are the control techniques used for autonomous navigation and the software tools and hardware applied in the prototype. This is an extension of a previous work, in which part of the navigation algorithm was developed and validated in a simulated environment. In this extension, the real prototype is controlled by an algorithm based on fuzzy logic to obtain standalone and more-natural navigation for the user of the device. The robotic device is intended to guide an elderly person in an urban environment autonomously, although it also has a manual navigation mode. Therefore, the device should be able to navigate smoothly without sudden manoeuvres and should respect the locomotion time of the user. Furthermore, because of the proposed environment, the device should be able to navigate in an unknown and unstructured environment. The results reveal that this prototype achieves the proposed objective, demonstrating adequate behaviour for navigation in an unknown environment and fundamental safety characteristics to assist the elderly.
Keywords: autonomous navigation; elderly; fuzzy logic; outdoor environment; robotic rollator walker.