An interactive robot workstation for applications in rehabilitation

Abstract

A novel approach to controlling robots has been developed which forms the basis of an interactive robotic workstation for use in educational and vocational settings by severely physically disabled individuals. In such settings, the intelligence of the disabled person is supplemented with the manipulation power of a robot in order to carry out activities such as game-play, cookery, science experiments, and mixed manual/robot assembly and inspection. These activities are in sharp contrast with mainstream robotics applications where the emphasis is on removing the human involvement in manual activities.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>