Simulation System of Electric-Powered Wheelchairs for Training Purposes

Abstract

For some people with severe physical disabilities, the main assistive device to improve their independence and to enhance overall well-being is an electric-powered wheelchair (EPW). However, there is a necessity to offer users EPW training. In this work, the Simcadrom is introduced, which is a virtual reality simulator for EPW driving learning purposes, testing of driving skills and performance, and testing of input interfaces. This simulator uses a joystick as the main input interface, and a virtual reality head-mounted display. However, it can also be used with an eye-tracker device as an alternative input interface and a projector to display the virtual environment (VE). Sense of presence, and user experience questionnaires were implemented to evaluate this version of the Simcadrom in addition to some statistical tests for performance parameters like: total elapsed time, path following error, and total number of commands. A test protocol was proposed and, considering the overall results, the system proved to simulate, very realistically, the usability, kinematics, and dynamics of a real EPW in a VE. Most subjects were able to improve their EPW driving performance in the training session. Furthermore, all skills learned are feasible to be transferred to a real EPW.

VR based Power Wheelchair Simulator: Usability Evaluation through a Clinically Validated Task with Regular Users

“…Only the Involvement score is slightly under the average. Compared to literature, our simulator presents great IPQ scores, largely higher than the screen based simulator miWe [32] but still a little lower than scores reported by the two studies using the SimCadRoM simulator [8,9].…”

“…Indeed, a study with the screen-based miWe simulator reported a low SoP experienced and associated it with a lack of motion feedback and depth perception [32]. As such, various researches proposed more immersive systems, starting with the use of a VR headset as visual interface to provide depth perception and immersive FOV [8,9] and the addition of other modalities like vibration motion feedback provided by a 6 degree of freedom motion platform [12]. Several researches also compared the use of different simulator configurations like in [14] with the VRSIM-2 simulator where the most immersive configuration allows raters to better evaluate user skills.…”

Virtual Reality-Based Framework to Simulate Control Algorithms for Robotic Assistance and Rehabilitation Tasks through a Standing Wheelchair

“…However, when considering robotic systems for the rehabilitation area, there is no commercial software or free software that allows one to simulate the behavior of robotic systems oriented to the execution of assistance or rehabilitation tasks. Therefore, the development of new interactive and 3D simulators applied to the area of service robotics is a new trend in the scientific community, whose implementation has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic [ 4 , 43 , 48 ].…”

Desenvolvimento de um sistema para avaliação de desempenho de usuários de cadeira de rodas motorizada

“…Em um ambiente virtual, a coleta e medição destas métricas é realizada de forma automatizada, ou seja, à medida que o voluntário completa as tarefas pedidas, o software contabiliza o número de comandos, colisões e o tempo, de forma rápida e em tempo real Hernandez-Ossa et al, 2020). E em ambiente real, não temos esta medição com as mesma precisão e rapidez, pois a métrica "tempo" pode ser quantificada utilizando um cronômetro; a métrica "número de colisões" comumente são contabilizadas a partir de vídeos que são gravados durante a execução das atividades, ou da observação do profissional que está aplicando o treinamento; e o "número de comandos" é contabilizado utilizando micro controladores ou através da observação dos vídeos gravados (Borges, 2016;Caetano et al, 2018).…”

“…O sistema tem como objetivo quantificar três métricas principais: número de comandos, número de colisões e tempo (Hernandez-Ossa et al, 2020;Younis et al, 2019):…”