Development and evaluation of a haptic framework supporting telerehabilitation robotics and group interaction

Telerehabilitation robotics has grown remarkably in the past few years. It can provide intensive training to people with special needs remotely while facilitating therapists to observe the whole process. Telerehabilitation robotics is a promising solution supporting routine care which can help to transform face-to-face and one-on-one treatment sessions that require not only intensive human resource but are also restricted to some specialised care centres to treatments that are technology-based (less human involvement) and easy to access remotely from anywhere. However, there are some limitations such as network latency, jitter, and delay of the internet that can affect negatively user experience and quality of the treatment session. Moreover, the lack of social interaction since all treatments are performed over the internet can reduce motivation of the patients. As a result, these limitations are making it very difficult to deliver an efficient recovery plan. This thesis developed and evaluated a new framework designed to facilitate telerehabilitation robotics. The framework integrates multiple cutting-edge technologies to generate playful activities that involve group interaction with binaural audio, visual, and haptic feedback with robot interaction in a variety of environments. The research questions asked were: 1) Can activity mediated by technology motivate and influence the behaviour of users, so that they engage in the activity and sustain a good level of motivation? 2) Will working as a group enhance users’ motivation and interaction? 3) Can we transfer real life activity involving group interaction to virtual domain and deliver it reliably via the internet? There were three goals in this work: first was to compare people’s behaviours and motivations while doing the task in a group and on their own; second was to determine whether group interaction in virtual and reala environments was different from each other in terms of performance, engagement and strategy to complete the task; finally was to test out the effectiveness of the framework based on the benchmarks generated from socially assistive robotics literature. Three studies have been conducted to achieve the first goal, two with healthy participants and one with seven autistic children. The first study observed how people react in a challenging group task while the other two studies compared group and individual interactions. The results obtained from these studies showed that the group interactions were more enjoyable than individual interactions and most likely had more positive effects in terms of user behaviours. This suggests that the group interaction approach has the potential to motivate individuals to make more movements and be more active and could be applied in the future for more serious therapy. Another study has been conducted to measure group interaction’s performance in virtual and real environments and pointed out which aspect influences users’ strategy for dealing with the task. The results from this study helped to form a better understanding to predict a user’s behaviour in a collaborative task. A simulation has been run to compare the results generated from the predictor and the real data. It has shown that, with an appropriate training method, the predictor can perform very well. This thesis has demonstrated the feasibility of group interaction via the internet using robotic technology which could be beneficial for people who require social interaction (e.g. stroke patients and autistic children) in their treatments without regular visits to the clinical centres

Orientações ao planejamento de objetos de aprendizagem com componente háptico para dispositivos móveis

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Adriano HeemannTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Artes, Comunicação e Design, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Design. Defesa : Curitiba, 14/03/2018Inclui referências: p.243-253Resumo: Os Objetos de Aprendizagem (OA) surgem como opção para o ensino em um meio tecnológico cada vez mais digitalizado que demanda recursos efetivos para educação. Podendo ser acessados através de dispositivos móveis, como tabletes e celulares, os OA viabilizam o conhecimento através do contexto digital, sem se limitar a um ambiente ou local específico. Neste meio, apesar dos OA utilizarem canais de informação, como o auditivo e o visual, percebe-se que o canal sensorial tátil ainda é pouco explorado. A percepção tátil é crucial ao humano, pois permite compreender propriedades como texturas, rugosidade, atrito e tamanho. Sendo assim, entende-se que o tato é um importante meio de aquisição de informação e conhecimento que poderiam ser contempladas nos OA por intermédio dos mostradores hápticos. Com base neste contexto, esta pesquisa explora a relação tátil na aprendizagem e almeja demonstrar como podem ser planejados os OA com componente háptico (OAH). Para tanto, foi necessário recorrer a um corpo de conhecimento apresentado nesta tese mediante revisões bibliográficas sistemáticas que esclarecem o que são os OA e como eles usam a relação tátil; demonstram tecnologias que podem prover a percepção háptica em dispositivos móveis; apresentam processos de desenvolvimento e planejamento dos recursos hápticos; e trazem conhecimentos disponíveis em normas ABNT e ISO. Como resultante são apresentadas orientações para o planejamento de OAH; demonstradas possibilidades de uso da háptica como recurso de aprendizagem e, então, é sugerida uma estrutura para compreensão e planejamento dos OAH para dispositivos móveis. Por fim, é exposta a conclusão da pesquisa, que reforça o atendimento dos objetivos de pesquisa bem como a necessidade de atualizações desta temática conforme se desenvolve o meio tecnológico. Portanto, a tese aqui apresentada constitui uma contribuição ao conhecimento sobre a aprendizagem tátil. Palavras-chave: Objetos de Aprendizagem. Háptica. Dispositivos Móveis. Planejamento. Design.Abstract: Learning Objects (LO) arise within teaching options in an increasingly digitalized technological environment, which in turn demands more effective educational resources. Accessed via mobile devices such as tablets and cellphones, LO enable knowledge in a digital context and are not limited to a specific environment or place. In this medium, even though LO use information channels such as audio and visual, touch is still seen as poorly explored in these resources. Tactile perception is vital to humans because it allows them to understand details such as textures, level of roughness, friction, and size. Therefore, touch is understood to be an important means to acquire knowledge and information, which could be shown in LO through touch displays. Based on this context, the present research explores the tactile relation in learning and seeks to show how LO can be designed with haptic components (HLO). To do so, it is necessary to resort to a corpus based on systematic reviews of literature, thus shedding light on the concept of LO and how they use tactile relation, demonstrating technologies that can grant touch perception in mobile devices; presenting development and planning processes of touch resources, and gathering knowledge available in standards such as ABNT and ISO. As a result, guidelines for the planning of LO are provided. Moreover, possibilities of the use of touch as a learning resource are presented and, finally, a structure for the comprehension and planning of LO for mobile devices is proposed. Finally, the conclusion of the research is presented, reinforcing the achievement of the research's goals as well as the need to continually update the present issue according to technological developments. Therefore, the thesis presented here constitutes a contribution to the knowledge about tactile learning. Keywords: Learning Objects. Haptic. Mobile Devices. Planning. Design