title: Performance evaluation of the Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA).
abstract: The Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance (PerMMA) is a recently developed personal assistance robot created to provide people with severe physical disabilities enhanced assistance in both mobility and manipulation. PerMMA aims to improve functional independence when a personal care attendant is not available on site. PerMMA integrates both a smart powered wheelchair and two dexterous robotic arms to assist its users in completing essential mobility and manipulation tasks during basic and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL). Two user interfaces were developed: a local control interface and a remote operator controller. This paper reports on the evaluation of PerMMA with end users completing basic ADL tasks. Participants with both lower and upper extremity impairments (N=15) were recruited to operate PerMMA and complete up to five ADL tasks in a single session of no more than two hours (to avoid fatigue or frustration of the participants). The performance of PerMMA was evaluated by participants completing ADL tasks with two different control modes: local mode and cooperative control. The users' task completion performance and answers on pre/post-evaluation questionnaires demonstrated not only the ease in learning and usefulness of PerMMA, but also their attitudes toward assistance from advanced technology like PerMMA. As a part of the iterative development process, results of this work will serve as supporting evidence to identify design criteria and other areas for improvement of PerMMA.
authors.affiliation: Human Engineering Research Laboratories, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States. Electronic address: how11@pitt.edu.
authors.forename: Hongwu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jijie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Garrett
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grindle
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vazquez
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Salatin
authors.forename: Annmarie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kelleher
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Diane M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.forename: Rory A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Cooper
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012449:Safety; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D014910:Wheelchairs
keywords: Assistive robot; Cooperative control; Performance evaluation; Personal assistance; Powered mobility; Remote operator; Wheelchair mounted robotic arm