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

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 22; no. 12; p. 4351
• Main Authors: Ding, Dan, Styler, Breelyn, Chung, Cheng-Shiu, Houriet, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 08.06.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: activities of daily living; Completion time; Control systems; Interfaces; Manipulators; multi-step tasks; Robot arms; Robotics; Robots; semi-autonomous control; Software; Test pilots; upper-limb impairments; Canada
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s22124351

Assistive robotic manipulators (ARMs) provide a potential solution to mitigating the difficulties and lost independence associated with manipulation deficits in individuals with upper-limb impairments. However, achieving efficient control of an ARM can be a challenge due to the multiple degrees of freedom (DoFs) of an ARM that need to be controlled. This study describes the development of a vision-guided shared-control (VGS) system and how it is applied to a multi-step drinking task. The VGS control allows the user to control the gross motion of the ARM via teleoperation and commands the ARM to autonomously perform fine manipulation. A bench-top test of the autonomous actions showed that success rates for different subtasks ranged from 80% to 100%. An evaluation with three test pilots showed that the overall task performance, in terms of success rate, task completion time, and joystick mode-switch frequency, was better with VGS than with teleoperation. Similar trends were observed with a case participant with a spinal cord injury. While his performance was better and he perceived a smaller workload with VGS, his perceived usability for VGS and teleoperation was similar. More work is needed to further improve and test VGS on participants with disabilities.