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

Multimodal interface for an intelligent wheelchair

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Overview of some Command Modes for Human-Robot Interaction Systems

Interaction and command modes as well as their combination are essential features of modern and futuristic robotic systems interacting with human beings in various dynamical environments. This paper presents a synthetic overview concerning the most command modes used in Human-Robot Interaction Systems (HRIS). It includes the first historical command modes which are namely tele-manipulation, off-line robot programming, and traditional elementary teaching by demonstration. It then introduces the most recent command modes which have been fostered later on by the use of artificial intelligence techniques implemented on more powerful computers. In this context, we will consider specifically the following modes: interactive programming based on the graphical-user-interfaces, voice-based, pointing-on-image-based, gesture-based, and finally brain-based commands.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Review of Assistive Devices for Electric Powered Wheelchairs Navigation

The decreasing costs of microprocessor systems and increasing range of “Smart Sensors” have led to a boom in Assistive Device Technology. The annual rate of expenditure for mobility related devices has reached $1 billion dollars in the United States alone. The industries current focus is to develop a wider range of Independent Mobility Controllers to allow, even the most severely disabled person, the ability to control an Electric Powered Wheelchair (EPW). Advances in Autonomous Robot Design have led to corresponding improvements in EPW technology. This paper outlines user interfaces and input device technologies used at present to navigate an EPW

Head-movement interface for wheelchair driving based on inertial sensors

Powered wheelchairs provide the only means of mobility for many people with severe motor disabilities. For those with both lower and upper limbs impairment, available interfaces may be either impossible or very difficult to use, as well as not very efficient. In this paper we propose an egocentric interface based on inertial sensors placed on the user's head. This interface is based on head movements that provide continuous direction and speed commands to steer the wheelchair, and allows an initial null-position of the head according to the natural posture of the user. However, the development of an inertial interface for driving a wheelchair presents two main challenges, namely, (1) the simultaneous movements of the head and the wheelchair, each one with its own coordinate system, and (2) the free unrestricted movement of the head. Therefore, the two coordinate systems need to be combined and several safety features are required to only ensure admissible commands. In this paper we describe the overall implementation and preliminary experiments that show the effectiveness of the proposed solution.This work has been financially supported by the Project B-RELIABLE: PTDC/EEI-AUT/30935/2017 and the Project VITASENIOR-MT: SAICT-POL/23659/2016 | CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-023659 with FEDER/FNR/OE funding through programs CENTRO2020 and FCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio