Active living is a way of life that integrates physical activity into daily routines. However, a large proportion of the age group 60-85 suffers from various kinds of physical disability that prevents them from living actively. Rollators may help but one of their main problems is that people in actual need of walking support often hesitate or refuse to use these walking aids as they are heavily stigmatised. In iWalkActive the user will be provided with an active, desirable walker providing cloud services and a drive based on brushless DC-motors. The user interacts with the active walker by a smartphone or a tablet PC using the touch screen, microphone and speaker. The services make use of indoor and outdoor navigation and include e.g. proposals for walking routes, or navigation to the examining room in a hospital. The sensors of the smart device will be used, e.g. for navigation or image processing. The novel active walker will be thoroughly tested by four different user groups in three European Countries (AT , CH, SE) in both urban areas and the outdoors.
Objectives
iWalkActive creates an active walker for active people. The aim is to offer a highly innovative, attractive, open walker platform that greatly improves the user’s mobility in an enjoyable and motivating way, while at the same time enabling physical activities that are either impossible, or very difficult to perform with a traditional rollator.
Technically and conceptually, the idea goes beyond that of a conventional walking aid. It takes an innovative walker frame – the Veloped – extends it with an efficient, powerful e-drive and combines it with the possibilities of state of the art ICT technology acting as a mobile device dock connected to valuable navigation and assistance services in the cloud.
Expected results and impact
The resulting activity platform offers outdoor as well as indoor navigation and orientation services and the assistive features of an all-terrain capable walker with a supportive e-drive. Community services such as the recording and rating of walking routes and an open interface for new walking-tailored Apps – down-loadable over an AppStore based on the UniversAAL uStore – enable the users to enjoy improved mobility, greater access to the outdoors and a motivating, enjoyable way to stay physically active.
Partners
Partners involved in the iWalkActive project
| Organization |
Type |
Country |
Website |
| Hochschule Luzern – Technik & Architektur, iHomeLab |
R&D |
Switzerland |
www.ihomelab.ch |
| AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH |
R&D |
Austria |
www.ait.ac.at |
| CareGuide GmbH |
SME |
Switzerland |
www.careguide.ch |
| TRIKON Solutions AG |
SME |
Switzerland |
www.trikon.ch |
| Geo7 AG |
SME |
Switzerland |
www.geo7.ch |
| ITH icoserve technology for healthcare GmbH |
Large Industry |
Austria |
www.ith-icoserve.com |
| Social Services Department of the Kanton Zug |
End User |
Switzerland |
www.zg.ch |
| Trionic Sverige AB |
SME |
Sweden |
www.trionic.se |
| SPF - Sveriges Pensionärsförbund as 3rd party of TRI |
End User |
Sweden |
www.spf.se |
- Project name: iWalkActive- The Active Walker for Active People
- Website: www.ihomelab.ch/index.php?id=20
- Coordinator: Hochschule Luzern – Technik & Architektur, iHomeLab
- Duration: 36 Months
- Starting Date: 15.08.2012
- Total budget: € 2.827.000
- Public contribution: € 1.482.000
Contact
Andreas Rumsch
E.: Andreas.rumsch@hslu.ch
T.: +41 41 349 35 99
