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Assistive mobile robots can play an important role in supporting individuals with disabilities. While the field of robot control interfaces for individuals with disabilities is growing, there is little work done on such systems for children end users specifically. Accordingly, we pursued the design of an adapted robot control interface for use in child pediatric occupational therapy (OT). Our target end user, a nine-year-old child with cerebral palsy, leveraged the interface to perform instrumental activities of daily living (e.g., play) with a modern mobile manipulator. We used an iterative design process to adjust and improve the interface via input from the participant’s caregivers and occupational therapist, as well as objective participant performance data. Furthermore, we tested the participant’s ability to utilize our interface by creating two testing cases: a control case (in which our participant performed standard ALD/IADL tasks) and an experimental case (in which our participant performed ADL/IADL practice activities more tailored toward the child). Key insights during the process included the need for sensitivity to taking up space on the child user’s existing power wheelchair, the advantages of integrating technologies familiar to the child (e.g., gaming controls, iPads) in our system design, and the potential value of integrating playful mischief (including playful interactions between the child, their caregivers, and their clinicians) as a part of the playbook for pediatric OT. This work can serve to inform and augment new OT strategies for the marginalized population of young children with disabilities.
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Development of Smartphone-Based Human-Robot Interfaces for Individuals with Disabilities
Persons with disabilities often rely on caregivers or family members to assist in their daily living activities. Robotic assistants can provide an alternative solution if intuitive user interfaces are designed for simple operations. Current humanrobot interfaces are still far from being able to operate in an intuitive way when used for complex activities of daily living (ADL). In this era of smartphones that are packed with sensors, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and a precise touch screen, robot controls can be interfaced with smartphones to capture the user’s intended operation of the robot assistant. In this paper, we review the current popular human-robot interfaces, and we present three novel human-robot smartphone-based interfaces to operate a robotic arm for assisting persons with disabilities in their ADL tasks. Useful smartphone data, including 3 dimensional orientation and 2 dimensional touchscreen positions, are used as control variables to the robot motion in Cartesian teleoperation. In this paper, we present the three control interfaces, their implementation on a smartphone to control a robotic arm, and a comparison between the results on using the three interfaces for three different ADL tasks. The developed interfaces provide intuitiveness, low cost, and environmental adaptability.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1826258
- PAR ID:
- 10187421
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the IEEERSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
- ISSN:
- 2153-0858
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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More than 1 billion people in the world are estimated to experience significant disability. These disabilities can impact people's ability to independently conduct activities of daily living, including ambulating, eating, dressing, taking care of personal hygiene, and more. Mobile and manipulator robots, which can move about human environments and physically interact with objects and people, have the potential to assist people with disabilities in activities of daily living. Although the vision of physically assistive robots has motivated research across subfields of robotics for decades, such robots have only recently become feasible in terms of capabilities, safety, and price. More and more research involves end-to-end robotic systems that interact with people with disabilities in real-world settings. In this article, we survey papers about physically assistive robots intended for people with disabilities from top conferences and journals in robotics, human–computer interactions, and accessible technology, to identify the general trends and research methodologies. We then dive into three specific research themes—interaction interfaces, levels of autonomy, and adaptation—and present frameworks for how these themes manifest across physically assistive robot research. We conclude with directions for future research.more » « less
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
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