title: Biometrically modulated collaborative control for an assistive wheelchair.
abstract: To operate a wheelchair, people with severe physical disabilities may require assistance, which can be provided by robotization. However, medical experts report that an excess of assistance may lead to loss of residual skills, so that it is important to provide just the right amount of assistance. This work proposes a collaborative control system based on weighting the robot's and the user's commands by their respective efficiency to reactively obtain an emergent controller. Thus, the better the person operates, the more control he/she gains. Tests with volunteers have proven, though, that some users may require extra assistance when they become stressed. Hence, we propose a controller that can change the amount of support taking into account supplementary biometric data. In this work, we use an off-the-shelf wearable pulse oximeter. Experiments have demonstrated that volunteers could use our wheelchair in a more efficient way due to the proposed biometric modulated collaborative control.
authors.affiliation: ISIS Group, ETSI Telecommunications, University of Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain. acurdiales@uma.es
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Urdiales
authors.forename: Blanca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fernandez-Espejo
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Annicchiaricco
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sandoval
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Caltagirone
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D004779:Environment Design; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010092:Oximetry; D012371:Robotics; D012449:Safety; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014910:Wheelchairs