Performance Evaluation of a Mobile Touchscreen Interface for Assistive Robotic Manipulators: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Background: Assistive robotic manipulators (ARMs) have been developed to provide enhanced assistance and independence in performance of daily activities among people with spinal cord injury when a caregiver is not on site. However, the current commercial ARM user interfaces (UIs) may be difficult to learn and control. A touchscreen mobile UI was developed to overcome these challenges. Objective: The object of this study was to evaluate the performance between 2 ARM UIs, touchscreen and the original joystick, using an ARM evaluation tool (ARMET). Methods: This is a pilot study of people with upper extremity impairments (N = 8). Participants were trained on 2 UIs, and then they chose one to use when performing 3 tasks on the ARMET: flipping a toggle switch, pushing down a door handle, and turning a knob. Task completion time, mean velocity, and open interviews were the main outcome measurements. Results: Among 8 novice participants, 7 chose the touchscreen UI and 1 chose the joystick UI. All participants could complete the ARMET tasks independently. Use of the touchscreen UI resulted in enhanced ARMET performance (higher mean moving speed and faster task completion). Conclusions: Mobile ARM UIs demonstrated easier learning experience, less physical effort, and better ARMET performance. The improved performance, the accessibility, and lower physical effort suggested that the touchscreen UI might be an efficient tool for the ARM users.

Assistive Robots for Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Exploratory Task-Based Evaluation Study With an Early-Stage Demonstrator

“…In this context, Chung et al [ 30 ] investigated the performance of a tablet-based UI versus a conventional joystick control in a comparative pilot study with 8 participants with upper extremity impairments using a JACO (Kinova) robotic manipulator. The use of the touch screen UI resulted in high execution speeds and low task completion times compared with the conventional control form; however, no equal distribution of UI users was realized within the study.…”

A Design Space of Control Coordinate Systems in Telemanipulation

“…While many 3D input devices have been developed, lowdimensional input devices such as joysticks and computer mice are still widely used in professional teleoperation systems such as surgical robots [20], assistive robots [21], disaster rescue robots [22], and space exploration robots [23]. Different kinds of 2D input devices have been used for a human operator to specify the position of a robot endeffector, including joysticks [24]- [27], computer mice [28], and touch screens [29], [30]. Prior research has found lowdimensional input devices to be more accurate, comfortable, and easier to use for inexperienced operators over 3D input devices [23], [27], [31], [32].…”

Development of a Vision-Guided Shared-Control System for Assistive Robotic Manipulators

“…Research in this area has focused on developing new ways to control ARMs, including new control interfaces [5,6], remapping control inputs [7], and shared-control schemes [3,8]. Most of the work on new control interfaces has aimed to provide an alternative means of ARM control such as voice control [9], gaze control [10,11], tongue control [12], braincomputer interface control [13], body movement control via inertia measurement units (IMUs) [14], and gesture control via computer vision [15].…”