Design and Development of Assistive Robots for Close Interaction with People with Disabilities

People with mobility and manipulation impairments wish to live and perform tasks as independently as possible; however, for many tasks, compensatory technology does not exist, to do so. Assistive robots have the potential to address this need. This work describes various aspects of the development of three novel assistive robots: the Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA), the Robotic Assisted Transfer Device (RATD), and the Mobility Enhancement Robotic Wheelchair (MEBot). PerMMA integrates mobility with advanced bi-manual manipulation to assist people with both upper and lower extremity impairments. The RATD is a wheelchair mounted robotic arm that can lift higher payloads and its primary aim is to assist caregivers of people who cannot independently transfer from their electric powered wheelchair to other surfaces such as a shower bench or toilet. MEBot is a wheeled robot that has highly reconfigurable kinematics, which allow it to negotiate challenging terrain, such as steep ramps, gravel, or stairs. A risk analysis was performed on all three robots which included a Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and a Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA) to identify potential risks and inform strategies to mitigate them. Identified risks or PerMMA include dropping sharp or hot objects. Critical risks identified for RATD included tip over, crush hazard, and getting stranded mid-transfer, and risks for MEBot include getting stranded on obstacles and tip over. Lastly, several critical factors, such as early involvement of people with disabilities, to guide future assistive robot design are presented

Personal Autonomy Rehabilitation in Home Environments by a Portable Assistive Robot

Increasingly disabled and elderly people with mobility problems want to live autonomously in their home environment. They are motivated to use robotic aids to perform tasks by themselves, avoiding permanent nurse or family assistant supervision. They must find means to rehabilitate their abilities to perform daily life activities (DLAs), such as eating, shaving, or drinking. These means may be provided by robotic aids that incorporate possibilities and methods to accomplish common tasks, aiding the user in recovery of partial or complete autonomy. Results are highly conditioned by the system's usability and potential. The developed portable assistive robot ASIBOT helps users perform most of these tasks in common living environments. Minimum adaptations are needed to provide the robot with mobility throughout the environment. The robot can autonomously climb from one surface to another, fixing itself to the best place to perform each task. When the robot is attached to its wheelchair, it can move along with it as a bundle. This paper presents the work performed with the ASIBOT in the area of rehabilitation robotics. First, a brief description of the ASIBOT system is given. A description of tests that have been performed with the robot and several impaired users is given. Insight into how these experiences have influenced our research efforts, especially, in home environments, is also included. A description of the test bed that has been developed to continue research on performing DLAs by the use of robotic aids, a kitchen environment, is given. Relevant conclusions are also included.This work has been supported by the CAM Project S2009/DPI-1559/ROBOCITY2030 I

In-home and remote use of robotic body surrogates by people with profound motor deficits

By controlling robots comparable to the human body, people with profound motor deficits could potentially perform a variety of physical tasks for themselves, improving their quality of life. The extent to which this is achievable has been unclear due to the lack of suitable interfaces by which to control robotic body surrogates and a dearth of studies involving substantial numbers of people with profound motor deficits. We developed a novel, web-based augmented reality interface that enables people with profound motor deficits to remotely control a PR2 mobile manipulator from Willow Garage, which is a human-scale, wheeled robot with two arms. We then conducted two studies to investigate the use of robotic body surrogates. In the first study, 15 novice users with profound motor deficits from across the United States controlled a PR2 in Atlanta, GA to perform a modified Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and a simulated self-care task. Participants achieved clinically meaningful improvements on the ARAT and 12 of 15 participants (80%) successfully completed the simulated self-care task. Participants agreed that the robotic system was easy to use, was useful, and would provide a meaningful improvement in their lives. In the second study, one expert user with profound motor deficits had free use of a PR2 in his home for seven days. He performed a variety of self-care and household tasks, and also used the robot in novel ways. Taking both studies together, our results suggest that people with profound motor deficits can improve their quality of life using robotic body surrogates, and that they can gain benefit with only low-level robot autonomy and without invasive interfaces. However, methods to reduce the rate of errors and increase operational speed merit further investigation.Comment: 43 Pages, 13 Figure

Study and Analysis of Design Optimization and Synthesis of Robotic ARM

A robot is a mechanical or virtual artificial agent, usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by a computer program or electronic circuitry. Robots can be autonomous or semi-autonomous. In this thesis, design optimization strategies and synthesis for robotic arm are studied. In the design process, novel optimization methods have been developed to reduce the mass of the whole robotic arm. The optimization of the robotic arm is conducted at three different levels, with the main objective to minimize the robot mass. At the first level, only the drive-train of the robotic arm is optimized. The design process of a robotic arm is decomposed into selection of components for the drive-train to reduce the weight At the second level, kinematic data is combined with the drive-train in the optimization. For this purpose, a dynamic model of the robot is required. Constraints are formulated on the motors, gearboxes and kinematic performance At the third level, a systematic optimization approach is developed, which contains design variables of structural dimensions, geometric dimensions and drive-train composes. Constraints are formulated on the stiffness and deformation. The stiffness and deformation of the arm are calculated through FEA simulation. The main objective of the thesis is to design optimization and synthesis analysis of robotic arm. The corresponding deflections, stresses and strains for that load will be find out by suing the method of finite element analysis

Dusty: an assistive mobile manipulator that retrieves dropped objects for people with motor impairments

People with physical disabilities have ranked object retrieval as a high priority task for assistive robots. We have developed Dusty, a teleoperated mobile manipulator that fetches objects from the floor and delivers them to users at a comfortable height. In this paper, we first demonstrate the robot's high success rate (98.4%) when autonomously grasping 25 objects considered important by people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We tested the robot with each object in five different configurations on five types of flooring. We then present the results of an experiment in which 20 people with ALS operated Dusty. Participants teleoperated Dusty to move around an obstacle, pick up an object, and deliver the object to themselves. They successfully completed this task in 59 out of 60 trials (3 trials each) with a mean completion time of 61.4 seconds (SD=20.5 seconds), and reported high overall satisfaction using Dusty (7-point Likert scale; 6.8 SD=0.6). Participants rated Dusty to be significantly easier to use than their own hands, asking family members, and using mechanical reachers (p < 0.03, paired t-tests). 14 of the 20 participants reported that they would prefer using Dusty over their current methods

PRELIMINARY DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF AN OVERHEAD KITCHEN ROBOT APPLIANCE

Many older adults and individuals with disabilities have difficulty with reaching, grasping, and carrying items that are a necessity to perform independent activities of daily living, including meal preparation in the kitchen. Assistive robotic manipulators are starting to show potential for independent assistance through their use on wheelchairs or mobile bases, but continue to lack many of the autonomous features readily available with fixed environment manipulators. The KitchenBot design described here provides the details and approach to providing an assistive robotic manipulator access to an entire kitchen workspace by utilizing a multi-degree track. Numerous focus groups were conducted in conjunction with the design and major features like heavy payload ability, tablet control interface, and user feedback was extracted. With further development, the KitchenBot could perform an even longer list of routine autonomous tasks in a product viable for everyone to use