Walk-IT: An Open-Source Modular Low-Cost Smart Rollator

Abstract

Rollators are widely used in clinical rehabilitation for gait assessment, but gait analysis usually requires a great deal of expertise and focus from medical staff. Smart rollators can capture gait parameters autonomously while avoiding complex setups. However, commercial smart rollators, as closed systems, can not be modified; plus, they are often expensive and not widely available. This work presents a low cost open-source modular rollator for monitorization of gait parameters and support. The whole system is based on commercial components and its software architecture runs over ROS2 to allow further customization and expansion. This paper describes the overall software and hardware architecture and, as an example of extended capabilities, modules for monitoring dynamic partial weight bearing and for estimation of spatiotemporal gait parameters of clinical interest. All presented tests are coherent from a clinical point of view and consistent with input data.