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

Gesture Based Navigation and Localization of a Smart Wheelchair using Fiducial Markers

With the rise in aging population, about 6.8 million American residents are depen- dent on mobility devices for their day to day activity. More than 40% of these users have di?culty in moving the mobility device on their own. These numbers serve as a motivation on developing a system than can help in manipulation with simple muscle activity and localize the mobility device in the user\u27s home in case of medical emergencies. This research is aimed at creating a user interface of Elec- tromyographic Sensor, attached to the forearm, incorporated with present smart wheelchairs and a simple localization technique using ducial markers. The main outcome of the research is a simulator of the smart wheelchair to analyze the results of my research

INTELLIGENT VISION-BASED NAVIGATION SYSTEM

This thesis presents a complete vision-based navigation system that can plan and follow an obstacle-avoiding path to a desired destination on the basis of an internal map updated with information gathered from its visual sensor. For vision-based self-localization, the system uses new floor-edges-specific filters for detecting floor edges and their pose, a new algorithm for determining the orientation of the robot, and a new procedure for selecting the initial positions in the self-localization procedure. Self-localization is based on matching visually detected features with those stored in a prior map. For planning, the system demonstrates for the first time a real-world application of the neural-resistive grid method to robot navigation. The neural-resistive grid is modified with a new connectivity scheme that allows the representation of the collision-free space of a robot with finite dimensions via divergent connections between the spatial memory layer and the neuro-resistive grid layer. A new control system is proposed. It uses a Smith Predictor architecture that has been modified for navigation applications and for intermittent delayed feedback typical of artificial vision. A receding horizon control strategy is implemented using Normalised Radial Basis Function nets as path encoders, to ensure continuous motion during the delay between measurements. The system is tested in a simplified environment where an obstacle placed anywhere is detected visually and is integrated in the path planning process. The results show the validity of the control concept and the crucial importance of a robust vision-based self-localization process

Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described

A non-holonomic, highly human-in-the-loop compatible, assistive mobile robotic platform guidance navigation and control strategy

The provision of assistive mobile robotics for empowering and providing independence to the infirm, disabled and elderly in society has been the subject of much research. The issue of providing navigation and control assistance to users, enabling them to drive their powered wheelchairs effectively, can be complex and wide-ranging; some users fatigue quickly and can find that they are unable to operate the controls safely, others may have brain injury re-sulting in periodic hand tremors, quadriplegics may use a straw-like switch in their mouth to provide a digital control signal. Advances in autonomous robotics have led to the development of smart wheelchair systems which have attempted to address these issues; however the autonomous approach has, ac-cording to research, not been successful; users reporting that they want to be active drivers and not passengers. Recent methodologies have been to use collaborative or shared control which aims to predict or anticipate the need for the system to take over control when some pre-decided threshold has been met, yet these approaches still take away control from the us-er. This removal of human supervision and control by an autonomous system makes the re-sponsibility for accidents seriously problematic. This thesis introduces a new human-in-the-loop control structure with real-time assistive lev-els. One of these levels offers improved dynamic modelling and three of these levels offer unique and novel real-time solutions for: collision avoidance, localisation and waypoint iden-tification, and assistive trajectory generation. This architecture and these assistive functions always allow the user to remain fully in control of any motion of the powered wheelchair, shown in a series of experiments

A MULTIMETHOD EXAMINATION OF PSEUDONEGLECT AND AGING

Neurologically healthy adults display a reliable leftward perceptual bias during visuospatial tasks, and this bias appears to change with age. The goal of the current research was to provide an examination of age-related differences in the expression of pseudoneglect and explore whether a shift in the perceptual bias with age was associated with daily activities, such as driving. Chapter 1 provides an overview of hemispatial neglect and pseudoneglect. Chapter 2 reports on results of an Internet-based survey in which the developmental trajectory of pseudoneglect was investigated using the greyscales task, which is known to generate a stronger and more consistent leftward bias among adults than similar tasks. Age was found to be positively correlated with a leftward bias, and the oldest age group exhibited a significantly stronger leftward bias compared to the youngest age group. Chapter 3 outlines the results of a systematic review that was used to synthesize previous literature that has examined the association between age and pseudoneglect. The systematic search revealed that five different tasks have been used to examine pseudoneglect in younger and older adults, and that participants over 60 years of age have demonstrated inconsistent perceptual biases (e.g., enhanced leftward bias, suppressed leftward bias, and rightward bias). The objectives of the quasi-experiment reported in Chapter 4 were to replicate the findings presented in Chapter 2 in a laboratory environment, and further understand influential methodological (e.g., task demands) and individual factors (e.g., normative and non-normative aging) on performance. Again, older adults, whether healthy or displaying symptoms of cognitive impairment, exhibited a leftward bias comparable to younger adults on the greyscales task, but demonstrated a weaker leftward bias on the landmark task. The study presented in Chapter 5 explored the potential association between age-related differences in pseudoneglect and driving by examining location of impact data associated with crashes and near crashes retrieved from a database of real-world driving behaviour. In contrast with results from laboratory environments, age was not associated with location of impact during crashes and near crashes, and overall, crashes were 1.41 times as likely to occur on the left compared to the right side of participants’ vehicles. Chapter 6 summarizes the findings presented in prior chapters and notes potential future directions. Together, the results of both laboratory and naturalistic studies outlines the variability in pseudoneglect demonstrated by healthy older adults, informs future research regarding the importance of task demands and non-normative aging, and highlights the potential implications of lateral perceptual biases

Mobile Robots

The objective of this book is to cover advances of mobile robotics and related technologies applied for multi robot systems' design and development. Design of control system is a complex issue, requiring the application of information technologies to link the robots into a single network. Human robot interface becomes a demanding task, especially when we try to use sophisticated methods for brain signal processing. Generated electrophysiological signals can be used to command different devices, such as cars, wheelchair or even video games. A number of developments in navigation and path planning, including parallel programming, can be observed. Cooperative path planning, formation control of multi robotic agents, communication and distance measurement between agents are shown. Training of the mobile robot operators is very difficult task also because of several factors related to different task execution. The presented improvement is related to environment model generation based on autonomous mobile robot observations