Many activities of daily living, such as picking up glasses, holding a fork or opening a door, which most people do without thinking, can become insurmountable for people who have upper extremity disabilities. The alternative to asking for human help is to use some assistive devices to compensate their loss of mobility; however, many of those devices are limited in terms of functionality. Robotics may provide a better approach for the development of assistive devices, by allowing greater functionality. In this paper, we present results of a study (n=31) which objectives were to evaluate the efficacy of a new joystick-controlled seven-degree of freedom robotic manipulator and assess its potential economic benefits. Results show that JACO is easy to use as the majority of the participants were able to accomplish the testing tasks on their first attempt. The economic model results inferred that the use of the JACO arm system could potentially reduce caregiving time by 41%. These study results are expected to provide valuable data for interested parties, such as individuals with disabilities, their family or caregivers.

This article presents Kinova's modular robotic systems, including the robots JACO2 and MICO2, actuators and grippers. Kinova designs and manufactures robotics platforms and components that are simple, sexy and safe under two business units: Assistive Robotics empowers people living with disabilities to push beyond their current boundaries and limitations while Service Robotics empowers people in industry to interact with their environment more efficiently and safely. Kinova is based in Boisbriand, Québec, Canada. Its technologies are exploited in over 25 countries and are used in many applications, including as service robotics, physical assistance, medical applications, mobile manipulation, rehabilitation, teleoperation and in research in different areas such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, grasping, planning and control interfaces. The article describes Kinova's hardware platforms, their different control modes (position, velocity and torque), control features and possible control interfaces. Integration to other systems and application examples are also presented.

Assistive Technologies (ATs) also called extrinsic enablers are useful tools for people living with various disabilities. The key points when designing such useful devices not only concern their intended goal, but also the most suitable human-machine interface (HMI) that should be provided to users. This paper describes the design of a highly intuitive wireless controller for people living with upper body disabilities with a residual or complete control of their neck and their shoulders. Tested with JACO, a six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) assistive robotic arm with 3 flexible fingers on its end-effector, the system described in this article is made of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf components and allows a full emulation of JACO's standard controller, a 3 axis joystick with 7 user buttons. To do so, three nine-degree-of-freedom (9-DOF) inertial measurement units (IMUs) are connected to a microcontroller and help measuring the user's head and shoulders position, using a complementary filter approach. The results are then transmitted to a base-station via a 2.4-GHz low-power wireless transceiver and interpreted by the control algorithm running on a PC host. A dedicated software interface allows the user to quickly calibrate the controller, and translates the information into suitable commands for JACO. The proposed controller is thoroughly described, from the electronic design to implemented algorithms and user interfaces. Its performance and future improvements are discussed as well.

This article presents Kinova's modular robotic systems, including the robots JACO2 and MICO2, actuators and grippers. Kinova designs and manufactures robotics platforms and components that are simple, sexy and safe under two business units: Assistive Robotics empowers people living with disabilities to push beyond their current boundaries and limitations while Service Robotics empowers people in industry to interact with their environment more efficiently and safely. Kinova is based in Boisbriand, Québec, Canada. Its technologies are exploited in over 25 countries and are used in many applications, including as service robotics, physical assistance, medical applications, mobile manipulation, rehabilitation, teleoperation and in research in different areas such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, grasping, planning and control interfaces. The article describes Kinova's hardware platforms, their different control modes (position, velocity and torque), control features and possible control interfaces. Integration to other systems and application examples are also presented.

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