A robotic wheelchair trainer: design overview and a feasibility study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Experiencing independent mobility is important for children with a severe movement disability, but learning to drive a powered wheelchair can be labor intensive, requiring hand-over-hand assistance from a skilled therapist.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To improve accessibility to training, we developed a robotic wheelchair trainer that steers itself along a course marked by a line on the floor using computer vision, haptically guiding the driver's hand in appropriate steering motions using a force feedback joystick, as the driver tries to catch a mobile robot in a game of "robot tag". This paper provides a detailed design description of the computer vision and control system. In addition, we present data from a pilot study in which we used the chair to teach children without motor impairment aged 4-9 (n = 22) to drive the wheelchair in a single training session, in order to verify that the wheelchair could enable learning by the non-impaired motor system, and to establish normative values of learning rates.</p> <p>Results and Discussion</p> <p>Training with haptic guidance from the robotic wheelchair trainer improved the steering ability of children without motor impairment significantly more than training without guidance. We also report the results of a case study with one 8-year-old child with a severe motor impairment due to cerebral palsy, who replicated the single-session training protocol that the non-disabled children participated in. This child also improved steering ability after training with guidance from the joystick by an amount even greater than the children without motor impairment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The system not only provided a safe, fun context for automating driver's training, but also enhanced motor learning by the non-impaired motor system, presumably by demonstrating through intuitive movement and force of the joystick itself exemplary control to follow the course. The case study indicates that a child with a motor system impaired by CP can also gain a short-term benefit from driver's training with haptic guidance.</p

Nonstationary Pearl Pulsations as a Signature of Magnetospheric Disturbances

. We analyse long-lasting (several hours) Pc1 pearl pulsations with decreasing, increasing or constant central frequency. We show that nonstationary pearl events (those with either decreasing or increasing central frequency) are observed simultaneously with increasing auroral magnetic activity at the nightside magnetosphere while the stationary events (constant central frequency) correspond to quiet magnetic conditions. Events with decreasing central frequency are observed mostly in the late morning and daytime whereas events with increasing central frequency appear either early in the morning or in the afternoon. We explain the diurnal distribution of the nonstationary pearl pulsations in terms of proton drifts depending on magnetic activity, and evaluate the magnetospheric electric field based on the variation of the central frequency of pearl pulsations. Key words. Magnetospheric physics, geomagnetic pulsations.

Coherent multiple Pc1 pulsation bands: possible evidence for the ionospheric Alfvén resonator

A fair fraction of Pc1 pulsation events observed on the ground includes more than one simultaneous pulsation band. In most such multiband events the bands display different characteristics and, therefore, come from different source regions via horizontal ducting in the ionosphere. However, in this report we identify a new &quot;coherent&quot; subclass of multiband Pc1 events where the pearls of the simultaneous bands have the same group velocities (repetition rates) as well as dispersion and other properties, thus implying that the bands are produced by the same source. Studying one example of such a coherent multiband event in more detail, we argue that these events defy an explanation in terms of band splitting by magnetospheric heavy ions because the observed frequency gap between the bands is smaller than would result in such a case. We interpret these events to be due to the frequency dependence of the ionospheric reflection coefficient of Alfvén waves. An oscillatory frequency dependence of the coefficient is a natural consequence of the idea that the ionosphere acts as a resonator for Alfvén waves. We also discuss other predictions of this interpretation