The Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA): A robotic wheelchair with advanced mobility and manipulation

Wang, Hongwu; Grindle, Garrett G.; Candiotti, Jorge; Chung, Chul; Shino, Motoki; Houston, E.; Cooper, Rory A.

doi:10.1109/embc.2012.6346676

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Recent studies [9,20,22,23] indicate that autonomous robotic platforms, as support systems for people with reduced mobility, would have a very positive impact on health systems and assistance to millions of people at national levels. However, after decades of work in research laboratories, only a reduced number of systems were able to become actual robotic chairs accessible to the group of potential users [3,24].…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filling the Gap between Research and Market: Portable Architecture for an Intelligent Autonomous Wheelchair

García

Marrón

Melino

et al. 2023

IJERPH

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Under the umbrella of assistive technologies research, a lot of different platforms have appeared since the 1980s, trying to improve the independence of people with severe mobility problems. Those works followed the same path coming from the field of robotics trying to reach users’ needs. Nevertheless, those approaches rarely arrived on the market, due to their specificity and price. This paper presents a new prototype of an intelligent wheelchair (IW) that tries to fill the gap between research labs and market. In order to achieve such a goal, the proposed solution balances the criteria of performance and cost by using low-cost hardware and open software standards in mobile robots combined together within a modular architecture, which can be easily adapted to different profiles of a wide range of potential users. The basic building block consists of a mechanical chassis with two electric motors and a low-level electronic control system; driven by a joystick, this platform behaves similar to a standard electrical wheelchair. However, the underlying structure of the system includes several independent but connected nodes that form a distributed and scalable architecture that allows its adaptability, by adding new modules, to tackle autonomous navigation. The communication among the system nodes is based on the controller area network (CAN) specification, an extended standard in industrial fields that have a wide range of low-cost devices and tools. The system was tested and evaluated in indoor environments and by final users in order to ensure its usability, robustness, and reliability; it also demonstrated its functionality when navigating through buildings, corridors, and offices. The portability of the solution proposed is also shown by presenting the results on two different platforms: one for kids and another one for adults, based on different commercial mechanical platforms.

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Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Filling the Gap between Research and Market: Portable Architecture for an Intelligent Autonomous Wheelchair

García

Marrón

Melino

et al. 2023

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The head gesture recognition is performed by means of real time face detection and tracking techniques. They developed a useful human-robot interface for RoboChair [12].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and Implementation of an Omnidirectional Wheelchair for Playing Badminton

Matsuo

Barolli

2015

2015 10th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA)

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The wheelchair with good performance for the aged and disabled is attracting attention from the society. Also, the wheelchair can provide the user with many benefits, such as maintaining mobility, continuing or broadening community and social activities, conserving strength and energy, and enhancing quality of life. The wheelchair body must be compact enough and should be able to make different movements in order to have many applications. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of an omnidirectional wheelchair for playing badminton. Finally, we discuss some implementation and application issues.

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“…For measuring vertical eye-gaze displacement (vEOG; mode 3) following a single eye-blink event, the difference signal between the average voltages at the A1/A2 and AF7/AF8 sites was considered. Assuming t = 0 s as the blink occurrence time, the average voltage in the [−2, −0.5] s window was calculated and subtracted from that of the [1,4] s window; these time-windows are not critical and may likely be optimized for faster response. The voltage thus measured was then rescaled according to a sigmoid function having x 0 = 0 µV and k = 50 µV −1 .…”

Section: ) Vertical Eye-gaze Displacement (Grasping Force Setting)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A substantial challenge in this area is to develop effective human-machine interfaces and paradigms for robot control, with the available technologies differing substantially in their residual motor function requirements, command throughput, ease of use, technical complexity and cost. At the bottom end of the spectrum, joystick (or micro-switch) control is suitable mainly for patients with at least partially preserved hand function (e.g., as after hemispheric stroke), being inexpensive and highly effective for driving, e.g., motorized wheelchairs and assistive arms [3], [4]; gesture-based control via low-cost camera systems is also emerging as a suitable alternative, posing less stringent requirements on upper limb and head movement capability [5], [6]. Highly accurate control of assistive devices has repeatedly been demonstrated based on superficially-recorded face-muscle electromyographic (EMG) and/or electrooculographic (EOG) signals; although harvesting information from these signals is generally more expensive and technically-demanding compared to micro-switch and camera-based interfaces, at a minimum, it only requires integrity of the cranial nerves function, which is generally preserved in patients with spinal lesions [7]- [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Control of a Vision-Guided Robot Arm by EOG, EMG, EEG Biosignals and Head Movement Acquired via a Consumer-Grade Wearable Device

2016

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Simultaneous acquisition of electrooculogram, jaw electromyogram, electroencephalogram, and head movement via consumer-grade wearable devices has become possible. Such devices offer new opportunities to deploy practical biosignal-based interfaces for assistive robots; however, they also pose challenges related to the available signals and their characteristics. In this proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate the possibility of successful control of a 5 + 1 degrees-of-freedom robot arm based on a consumer wireless headband in the form of four control modes predicated on distinct signal combinations. We propose a control approach hybrid at two levels, which seeks a compromise between robot controllability and maintaining the user goal rather than being process-focused. First, robot arm steering combines discrete and proportional aspects. Second, after the robot has been steered toward the approximate target direction, a sparse approach is followed and the user only needs to issue a single command, after which steering adjustment and grasping are performed automatically under stereoscopic vision guidance. We present in detail the associated algorithms, whose implementation is publicly available. Within this framework, we also demonstrate the control of arm posture and grasping force based, respectively, on object visual features and user input. We regard the interface proposed herein as a viable blueprint for future work on controlling wheelchair-mounted and mealassisting robot arms.INDEX TERMS Accelerometer, assistive robotics, brain-computer interface (BCI), brain-machine interface (BMI), electrooculogram (EOG), electroencephalogram (EEG), electromyogram (EMG), event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS), grasping force, human-machine interface (HMI), mealassisting robot, stereoscopic vision, wheelchair-mounted robot arm.

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The Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA): A robotic wheelchair with advanced mobility and manipulation

Cited by 14 publications

References 7 publications

Filling the Gap between Research and Market: Portable Architecture for an Intelligent Autonomous Wheelchair

Filling the Gap between Research and Market: Portable Architecture for an Intelligent Autonomous Wheelchair

Design and Implementation of an Omnidirectional Wheelchair for Playing Badminton

Hybrid Control of a Vision-Guided Robot Arm by EOG, EMG, EEG Biosignals and Head Movement Acquired via a Consumer-Grade Wearable Device

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