Self initiated prone progressive crawler

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8942874-B2
Application number	US-201113698371-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 20, 2011
Priority date	May 20, 2010
Publication date	Jan 27, 2015
Grant date	Jan 27, 2015

Abstract

A self initiated prone progressive crawler facilitates crawling in infants by sensing the infant's intent and assisting movement. The device is designed as a mobility aid to assist an infant in prone locomotion. The infant can be placed in a prone position on a platform and secured with hook and loop straps. The arms and legs are unconstrained and are able to reach the floor comfortably. The self initiated prone progressive crawler is a motorized wheeled platform which has three points of contact with the ground. One point is an industrial trackball, mounted upside down to provide positional and positional derivative data to a controller. It is located roughly under the chest of the infant and is highly sensitive to movement. The other points of contact are two DC torque motors which are controlled by the controller. In addition to the positional and positional derivative data provided to the controller, the controller also receives data from four equally spaced load cells on a force plate and tn-axial accelerometer gyros attached to the upper and lower extremities of the child. The load cells provide force information between the infant and the device to allow weight shifts to be assessed and used as a control parameter. The accelerometer gyros generate data that provides patterns that can be correlated with crawling movements.

First claim

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is as follows:

1. A device which facilitates crawling in infants comprising:
a platform on which an infant can be positioned prone with arms and legs in contact with a surface below the platform, on which surface said platform is moveable;
one or more sensors for detecting arm and leg movements of the infant on the platform;
a controller receiving outputs from the one or more senso…

Assignees

• Pidcoe Peter E
• Kolobe Hlapang A
• Univ Virginia Commonwealth
• Univ Oklahoma

Inventors

• Pidcoe Peter E
• Kolobe Hlapang A

Classifications

• A47D13/04 Primary

  Human Necessities · mapped topic

• A61G2203/42

  Human Necessities · mapped topic

• A47D13/08

  Human Necessities · mapped topic

• A61G2203/32

  Human Necessities · mapped topic

• A61G2200/14

  Human Necessities · mapped topic