AmbienNet: An Intelligent Environment to Support People with Disabilities and Elderly People

AmbienNet is an ongoing project aiming to demonstrate the viability of accessible intelligent environments to support people with disabilities and elderly people living autonomously. Based on the Ambient Intelligence paradigm, it tries to study in depth its advantages and disadvantages for people with sensory, physical or cognitive restrictions. To this end diverse supporting technologies and applications have been designed, in order to test their accessibility, usability and validity. After introducing the objectives and findings of the project, in this paper a number of preliminary results are presented and discussed

Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people

This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and users for which service robots are and are not suitable

Pre-Travel Training And Real-Time Guidance System For People With Disabilities In Indoor Environments

Public transportation provides people with access to education, employment, health and community activities. However, navigating inside public hubs for people with disabilities such as cognitive or mobility impairments can be very challenging and dangerous. With the rapid development of digital technology such as Smartphones and sensors, there are unprecedented opportunities to assist people with disabilities to conquer these challenges. In this research, we aim to create a two-step indoor navigation solution for users with different mobility and orientation abilities. In the first step, we developed a virtual reality-based pre-travel training module that enables users to familiarize themselves with the virtual environment which represents the physical environment. After users feel confident and familiar enough with the environment, they proceed to the second step in which they visit the physical environment and use our real-time navigation assistance module. The pre-travel training module is developed using a Unity-based 3D game and includes a virtual indoor environment that represents the physical environment. The game provides a navigation function that highlights the path between the user location and the chosen destination. Considering the unique needs of cognitive impaired users, we designed action training modules in the game environment which train the user to use the ticket machine, fare gate and call boxes. Such training modules help cognitive impaired users familiarize themselves with the environment as well as gain confidence to experience the physical environment. When the users are ready to visit the physical environment, they use our real-time navigation assistance module which includes the same 3D virtual environment developed for the pre-travel training module. This approach is particularly important for people with cognitive impairment since they cannot organize navigation cues effectively. Using the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) infrastructure in the environment, our localization algorithm can track the user location in real-time. Subsequently, the user’s location will be integrated into the game environment so that the navigation path between the user’s current location and the selected destination can be generated and visualized by the user on the fly

Vision-Based Tactile Paving Detection Method in Navigation Systems for Visually Impaired Persons

In general, a visually impaired person relies on guide canes in order to walk outside besides depending only on a tactile pavement as a warning and directional tool in order to avoid any obstructions or hazardous situations. However, still a lot of training is needed in order to recognize the tactile pattern, and it is quite difficult for persons who have recently become visually impaired. This chapter describes the development and evaluation of vision-based tactile paving detection method for visually impaired persons. Some experiments will be conducted on how it works to detect the tactile pavement and identify the shape of tactile pattern. In this experiment, a vision-based method is proposed by using MATLAB including the Arduino platform and speaker as guidance tools. The output of this system based on the result found from tactile detection in MATLAB then produces auditory output and notifies the visually impaired about the type of tactile detected. Consequently, the development of tactile pavement detection system can be used by visually impaired persons for easy detection and navigation purposes

Towards Early Mobility Independence: An Intelligent Paediatric Wheelchair with Case Studies

Standard powered wheelchairs are still heavily dependent on the cognitive capabilities of users. Unfortunately, this excludes disabled users who lack the required problem-solving and spatial skills, particularly young children. For these children to be denied powered mobility is a crucial set-back; exploration is important for their cognitive, emotional and psychosocial development. In this paper, we present a safer paediatric wheelchair: the Assistive Robot Transport for Youngsters (ARTY). The fundamental goal of this research is to provide a key-enabling technology to young children who would otherwise be unable to navigate independently in their environment. In addition to the technical details of our smart wheelchair, we present user-trials with able-bodied individuals as well as one 5-year-old child with special needs. ARTY promises to provide young children with early access to the path towards mobility independence