Robotic walking stick lends users some balance
From: New Scientist - 02/06/2012
By: Paul Marks

Car maker Toyota has invented a robotic walking stick that offers users a way
to right themselves when they begin to fall, or which lets them get a bit of
rehabilitative exercise. 

Working with the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Toyota
engineers in Erlanger, Kentucky, placed a bidirectional,chunky rubber wheel
that is driven by motors at the foot of a stick that is packed with
balance-sensing accelerometers. The hand grip has a force sensor with which
the user controls the strength of the wheels forward motion or backspin. 

If the user starts to fall forwards, gripping the handle causes the wheel to
slowly-but-strongly push back on the user's arm, hopefully righting them. If
they start to fall backwards, the multi-axis accelerometers sense the
direction needed to push them back upright. If the user has back problems,
Toyota suggests they can use the stick to lean on and supply backpressure
repeatedly, allowing them to exercise muscles that don't normally get a work
out. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/02/robotic-walking-cane-looks-lik.html

Links:
Patent Publication
http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat20120029696.pdf