Incorporating Wheelchair Users in People Detection

A wheelchair users detector is presented to extend people detection, providing a more general solution to detect people in environments such as houses adapted for independent and assisted living, hospitals, healthcare centers and senior residences. A wheelchair user model is incorporated in a detector whose detections are afterwards combined with the ones obtained using traditional people detectors (we define these as standing people detectors). We have trained a model for classical (DPM) and for modern (Faster-RCNN) detection algorithms, to compare their performance. Besides the extensibility proposed with respect to people detection, a dataset of video sequences has been recorded in a real in-door senior residence environment containing wheelchairs users and standing people and it has been released together with the associated groundtruthThis work has been partially supported by the Spanish government under the project TEC2014-53176-R (HAVideo) and by the Spanish Government FPU grant programme (Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte

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

Radar-based Road User Classification and Novelty Detection with Recurrent Neural Network Ensembles

Radar-based road user classification is an important yet still challenging task towards autonomous driving applications. The resolution of conventional automotive radar sensors results in a sparse data representation which is tough to recover by subsequent signal processing. In this article, classifier ensembles originating from a one-vs-one binarization paradigm are enriched by one-vs-all correction classifiers. They are utilized to efficiently classify individual traffic participants and also identify hidden object classes which have not been presented to the classifiers during training. For each classifier of the ensemble an individual feature set is determined from a total set of 98 features. Thereby, the overall classification performance can be improved when compared to previous methods and, additionally, novel classes can be identified much more accurately. Furthermore, the proposed structure allows to give new insights in the importance of features for the recognition of individual classes which is crucial for the development of new algorithms and sensor requirements.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted paper for 2019 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV), Paris, France, June 201

Autonomna navigacija za invalidska kolica s detekcijom prepreka u stvarnom vremenu korištenjem 3D senzora

Autonomous wheelchairs operating in dynamic environments need to sense its surrounding environment and adapt the control signal, in real-time, to avoid collisions and protect the user. In this paper we propose a robust, simple and real-time autonomous navigation module that drives a wheelchair toward a desired target, along with its capability to avoid obstacles in a 3D dynamic environment. To command the mobile robot to the target, we use a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). For obstacle avoidance, we use the Kinect Xbox 360 to provide an actual map of the environment. The generated map is fed to the reactive obstacle avoidance control Deformable Virtual Zone (DVZ). Simulations and real world experiments results are reported to show the feasibility and the performance of the proposed control system.Autonomna invalidska kolica koja se kreću u dinamičkim okruženjima moraju biti sposobna detektirati prepreke u svojoj okolini, te prilagoditi upravljački signal u stvarnom vremenu kako bi se izbjegli sudari i zaštitio korisnik. U ovom radu predlaže se jednostavan, robustan modul za autonomnu navigaciju u stvarnom vremenu koji vodi invalidska kolica prema željenom odredištu, te omogućuje izbjegavanje prepreka u 3D okruženju. Za upravljanje koristi se regulator baziran na neizravnoj logici (FLC). Za izbjegavanje prepreka koristi se Kinect Xbox 360 senzor koji gradi kartu okoline. Generirana karta se predaje reaktivnoj kontroli za izbjegavanje prepreka Deformiranoj Virutalnoj Zoni (DVZ). Prikazani su rezultati simulacija i eksperimenata u stvarnom svijetu kako bi se pokazala izvedivost i kvaliteta izvođenja predloženog sustava upravljanja

Markerless Kinematics of Pediatric Manual Wheelchair Mobility

Pediatric manual wheelchair users face substantial risk of orthopaedic injury to the upper extremities, particularly the shoulders, during transition to wheelchair use and during growth and development. Propulsion strategy can influence mobility efficiency, activity participation, and quality of life. The current forefront of wheelchair biomechanics research includes translating findings from adult to pediatric populations, improving the quality and efficiency of care under constrained clinical funding, and understanding injury mechanisms and risk factors. Typically, clinicians evaluate wheelchair mobility using marker-based motion capture and instrumentation systems that are precise and accurate but also time-consuming, inconvenient, and expensive for repeated assessments. There is a substantial need for technology that evaluates and improves wheelchair mobility outside of the laboratory to provide better outcomes for wheelchair users, enhancing clinical data. Advancement in this area gives physical therapists better tools and the supporting research necessary to improve treatment efficacy, mobility, and quality of life in pediatric wheelchair users. This dissertation reports on research studies that evaluate the effect of physiotherapeutic training on manual wheelchair mobility. In particular, these studies (1) develop and characterize a novel markerless motion capture-musculoskeletal model systems interface for kinematic assessment of manual wheelchair propulsion biomechanics, (2) conduct a longitudinal investigation of pediatric manual wheelchair users undergoing intensive community-based therapy to determine predictors of kinematic response, and (3) evaluate propulsion pattern-dependent training efficacy and musculoskeletal behavior using visual biofeedback.Results of the research studies show that taking a systems approach to the kinematic interface produces an effective and reliable system for kinematic assessment and training of manual wheelchair propulsion. The studies also show that the therapeutic outcomes and orthopaedic injury risk of pediatric manual wheelchair users are significantly related to the propulsion pattern employed. Further, these subjects can change their propulsion pattern in response to therapy even in the absence of wheelchair-based training, and have pattern-dependent differences in joint kinematics, musculotendon excursion, and training response. Further clinical research in this area is suggested, with a focus on refining physiotherapeutic training strategies for pediatric manual wheelchair users to develop safer and more effective propulsion patterns