A growing number of robotic devices could soon revolutionize the lives of people with motor disabilities.
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A head-worn device recently developed at Carnegie Mellon University could help users who have difficulty moving their limbs control a mobile manipulator. The invention is one of a number of robotic devices, from artificial limbs to service automatons, that could enhance the autonomy of people with disabilities.
"Robots can provide their assistance if the individual is unable to perform certain tasks for situational, temporary or permanent reasons," Nandita Gupta, an accessibility product manager at Microsoft, told Lifewire in an email interview. "For example, if someone uses a robot as a companion, it can be used for therapeutic reasons, but also to offload cognitively demanding tasks to the robot companion. Additionally, it helps improve mental health and in many cases we have seen that patients with mild cognitive impairment have shown improvements with both robot companions and humans."
Remote manipulators are a popular choice for people with disabilities. The manipulators can assist with activities of daily living, but many existing technologies, such as handheld joysticks or web interfaces, require a user to have fine motor skills. Now, researchers at Carnegie Mellon, led by robotics PhD candidate Akhil Padmanabha, have developed a new device equipped with a hands-free microphone and a head-worn sensor that allows users to control a mobile robot through head movements and speech recognition. The Head-Worn Assistive Teleoperation (HAT) is intended to be easier to use than other interfaces.
