Vision-based assistance for wheelchair navigation along corridors

International audienceIn case of motor impairments, steering a wheelchair can become a hazardous task. Typically, along corridors, joystick jerks induced by uncontrolled motions are source of wall collisions. This paper describes a vision based assistance solution for safe indoor semi-autonomous navigation purposes. To this aim, the control process is based on a visual servoing process designed for wall avoidance purposes. As the patient manually drives the wheelchair, a virtual guide is defined to progressively activate an automatic trajectory cor- rection. The proposed solution does not require any knowledge of the environment. Experiments have been conducted over corridors that present different configurations and illumination conditions. Results demonstrate the ability of the system to smoothly and adaptively assist people during their motions

Assistive trajectories for human-in-the-loop mobile robotic platforms

Autonomous and semi-autonomous smoothly interruptible trajectories are developed which are highly suitable for application in tele-operated mobile robots, operator on-board military mobile ground platforms, and other mobility assistance platforms. These trajectories will allow a navigational system to provide assistance to the operator in the loop, for purpose built robots or remotely operated platforms. This will allow the platform to function well beyond the line-of-sight of the operator, enabling remote operation inside a building, surveillance, or advanced observations whilst keeping the operator in a safe location. In addition, on-board operators can be assisted to navigate without collision when distracted, or under-fire, or when physically disabled by injury

Towards an intelligent and supportive environment for people with physical or cognitive restrictions

AmbienNet environment has been developed with the aim of demonstrating the feasibility of accessible intelligent environments designed to support people with disabilities and older persons living independently. Its main purpose is to examine in depth the advantages and disadvantages of pervasive supporting systems based on the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence for people with sensory, physical or cognitive limitations. Hence diverse supporting technologies and applications have been designed in order to test their accessibility, ease of use and validity. This paper presents the architecture of AmbienNet intelligent environment and an intelligent application to support indoors navigation for smart wheelchairs designed for validation purposes.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2006-15617-C[01,02,03

Using virtual potential fields for electric wheelchair guidance

TetraNauta is an electric wheelchair guidance system intended for people with heavy motion impairments (such as persons with tetraplegia). It is specially useful when impairments also affect wheelchair steering as it is able to automatically guide wheelchairs between different points in a known environment (a hospital, a school, etc), conditioned with track marks painted on the floor. It also provides a semiautomatic navigation mode, where control is shared between user and navigation system. It is intended for learning wheelchair manipulation and as an aid in places where navigation is difficult or dangerous (i.e. for crossing narrow corridors)

Airport Accessibility and Navigation Assistance for People with Visual Impairments

People with visual impairments often have to rely on the assistance of sighted guides in airports, which prevents them from having an independent travel experience. In order to learn about their perspectives on current airport accessibility, we conducted two focus groups that discussed their needs and experiences in-depth, as well as the potential role of assistive technologies. We found that independent navigation is a main challenge and severely impacts their overall experience. As a result, we equipped an airport with a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon-based navigation system and performed a real-world study where users navigated routes relevant for their travel experience. We found that despite the challenging environment participants were able to complete their itinerary independently, presenting none to few navigation errors and reasonable timings. This study presents the first systematic evaluation posing BLE technology as a strong approach to increase the independence of visually impaired people in airports

Multi-layered map based navigation and interaction for an intelligent wheelchair

Intelligent wheelchair is a paradigm of assisted living applications for elderly and disabled people. Its autonomous navigation and human-robot interaction is the major challenge. The previous intelligent wheelchair research has been mainly focused on geometric map based navigation, which is computational expensive in a large scale environment. This paper proposes the use of multi-layered maps for navigation and interaction of an intelligent wheelchair. The semantic information can improve the efficiency of path planning and navigation as well as extend the capability of task planning for the wheelchair. Some experimental results are given to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of the proposed approach