2,853 research outputs found
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
A Low-Cost Tele-Presence Wheelchair System
This paper presents the architecture and implementation of a tele-presence
wheelchair system based on tele-presence robot, intelligent wheelchair, and
touch screen technologies. The tele-presence wheelchair system consists of a
commercial electric wheelchair, an add-on tele-presence interaction module, and
a touchable live video image based user interface (called TIUI). The
tele-presence interaction module is used to provide video-chatting for an
elderly or disabled person with the family members or caregivers, and also
captures the live video of an environment for tele-operation and
semi-autonomous navigation. The user interface developed in our lab allows an
operator to access the system anywhere and directly touch the live video image
of the wheelchair to push it as if he/she did it in the presence. This paper
also discusses the evaluation of the user experience
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
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
Assistive robotic device: evaluation of intelligent algorithms
Assistive robotic devices can be used to help people with upper body
disabilities gaining more autonomy in their daily life. Although basic motions
such as positioning and orienting an assistive robot gripper in space allow
performance of many tasks, it might be time consuming and tedious to perform
more complex tasks. To overcome these difficulties, improvements can be
implemented at different levels, such as mechanical design, control interfaces
and intelligent control algorithms. In order to guide the design of solutions,
it is important to assess the impact and potential of different innovations.
This paper thus presents the evaluation of three intelligent algorithms aiming
to improve the performance of the JACO robotic arm (Kinova Robotics). The
evaluated algorithms are 'preset position', 'fluidity filter' and 'drinking
mode'. The algorithm evaluation was performed with 14 motorized wheelchair's
users and showed a statistically significant improvement of the robot's
performance.Comment: 4 page
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