Power Wheelchair Navigation Assistance Using Wearable Vibrotactile Haptics

Abstract

People with severe disabilities often rely on power wheelchairs for moving around. However, if their driving abilities are affected by their condition, driving a power wheelchair can become very dangerous, both for themselves and the surrounding environment. This paper proposes the use of wearable vibrotactile haptics for wheelchair navigation assistance. We use one or two haptic armbands, each composed of four evenly-spaced vibrotactile actuators, for providing different navigation information to power wheelchair users. With respect to other available solutions, our approach provides rich navigation information while always leaving the patient in control of the wheelchair motion. Moreover, our armbands can be easily adapted for different limbs and can be used by all those patients who are unable to safely maneuver a kinesthetic interface. The results of two human subjects studies show the viability and effectiveness of the proposed technique with respect to not providing any environmental cue. Collisions were reduced by 49% when using the vibrotactile armbands. Moreover, most subjects expressed a preference for receiving haptic feedback and found the armbands comfortable to wear and use.

Haptic Teleoperation of Flexible Needles Combining 3D Ultrasound Guidance and Needle Tip Force Feedback

“…This preference of application for the two types of feedback, i.e., kinesthetic is better/preferred for needle guidance while vibrotactile for cutting force rendering, is not so surprising. Indeed, although vibrotactile feedback has been used for navigation, it is well known that it becomes quickly unpleasant if repeated too often [33]. As also suggested by one subject, this could be the main reason for a degraded performance.…”

SpheriCol: A Driving Assistance System for Power Wheelchairs Based on Spherical Vision and Range Measurements

“…Their feedback will be also valuable to adapt the driving assistance system to their specific needs. In particular, to perform a quantitative evaluation on a given trajectory, we plan to compute some standard performance metrics, such as the average completion time, average number of collisions, or path length [26]. We would also like to modify the distance markers according to the velocity information coming from the wheelchair joystick's angle.…”

“…5), sound signals are generated when an obstacle is detected. Normally sighted individuals could also benefit from the auditory feedback, when their visual and haptic channels [26] are overloaded with information. Finally, the "Color", "Max Distance", "Volume" and "Sound's Threshold" buttons, give access to additional configuration parameters which allow to fully customize the driving assistance system.…”

Crowd Navigation in VR: Exploring Haptic Rendering of Collisions

“…An explanation for this result could lie in the fact that users already registered high embodiment and presence levels without experiencing haptic feedback in the first condition (NoHaptic1), leaving little room for improvement in the Haptic condition. Another possibility is that vibrotactile feedback is not suited to render collisions in crowds, although there are several examples of this type of feedback being used to render similar events [5], [18]. Finally, a last explanation could be the location and number of our haptic devices.…”