Design and evaluation of a visual control interface of a wheelchair mounted robotic arm for users with cognitive impairments

摘要

Wheelchair mounted robotic arms have been commercially available for the last decade. They provide independence to people with disabilities. However, a user must have a high level of cognitive load to operate these robot arms. Our target audience includes people who use power wheelchairs and have cognitive impairments as well. Thus, we must reduce the cognitive load. Our research focuses on replacing the standard menu-based interface with a vision-based system while adding autonomy to the robot arm to execute a “pick-and-place ” activity of daily living. Instead of manual task decomposition and execution, the user explicitly designates the end goal and the system then autonomously reaches towards the object. We designed and implemented human-robot interfaces compatible with indi-rect (e.g., single switch scanning) and direct (e.g., touch screen and joystick) selection. We implemented an autonomous system to reach towards an object. We evaluated the interfaces and system first with able-bodied participants and then end-users from the target population. Based upon this work, we developed guidelines for interface design and experimental design for human-robot interaction with assistive technology. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to first thank my advisor, mentor, and friend, Dr. Holly Yanco, for believing in my academic research potential and providing the necessary support and guidance along the way. I would also like to thank my thesis committee, Dr. Jill Drury and David Kontak, for providing valuable insight into my research. Thanks to all the members of the Robotics Lab, particularly Philip Thoren,