Robotic Assistive Devices For Independent Living

Hallie Siegel writes: Kavita Krishnaswamy has extreme physical disabilities that severely limit her mobility. She also has drive and a keen mind. I met her last month at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), where she attended via BEAM. In this article, Kavita shares her Phd research to develop robotic assistive devices that give independence to people with severe disabilities. Interesting work on the need for 'multi-modal' interfaces — ie. interfaces that allow the users to interact with the assistive device in different ways, including speech recognition and brain-computer interface.

all of us have at least one disability

[turkeydance]

compared to others.

It will be diverted

[PopeRatzo]

Unfortunately, whatever robotic technology that's used to help disabled people will end up just being co-opted to let fat people get fatter. The disabled are not a big enough market. Morbidly obese people are already a major market for the medical equipment industry.

And the cost will be borne by all of us.

Re:

[Livius]

There's no doubt it would be abused by the marginally disabled or even the merely lazy, but at least this might actually help some disabled people achieve independence. Far too often measures allegedly for the disabled are implemented to make a political statement - and the effective statement is the one that spends enormous amounts of money to underline, rather than overcome, disabilities.

Re:

[PopeRatzo]

There's no doubt it would be abused by the marginally disabled or even the merely lazy, but at least this might actually help some disabled people achieve independence.

That's true. I suppose if a large market of fat people eventually makes the technology more cheaply available to the disabled, then that's a win.

Far too often measures allegedly for the disabled are implemented to make a political statement - and the effective statement is the one that spends enormous amounts of money to underline, rather t

An immediate opportunity

[TomRC]

Something that robotics researchers could immediately apply is technology developed to give robots balance.

Older people and young handicapped people often have to use walkers because they have balance issues.

A wearable device that could detect onset of loss of balance and immediately shift mass a bit to restore it.

Or a device fitted to legs to gently adjust leg positions to continuously maintain balance, recognizing the difference between the inherent imbalances of walking versus walking or standing dynami

Re:

[Livius]

That's an interesting application, because there's a category of people who can walk perfectly fine 99.9% of the time and are therefore deemed to have a legitimate medial need for a wheelchair because the 0.1% could mean serious injury. They need something but the wheelchair is overkill.

Re:

[lordlod]

It is an interesting problem but as you get into the details it rapidly becomes more complex.

1. You need to detect the difference between a normal movement such as walking or kneeling and a fall. This is complex because we move by deliberately off balancing ourselves. This also has to be highly accurate, a 1% false positive rate would make walking around impossible.
2. The person has to be saved from the fall. It isn't enough to straighten the legs, in fact that could make it worse. The whole body has to be rig

Needs only 3 buttons

[Tablizer]

1. Get me pizza
2. Get me a beer
3. Suck my dick

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps they could just install you in a small cubicle with a recliner, mini-fridge and a dick-suckin' machine.

Does it help with mental problems?

[penguinoid]

Not that I'm saying that our editors have severe mental problems and desperately need assistance.

Why wait for robots...

[jasno]

Why not just create a telepresence robot that, say, let's grandma wash dishes and fold laundry for the kids who live 2,000 miles away? You don't have to wait for fancy AI - just low-latency video and control channels. Maybe it sounds like a way to enslave the elderly, but my mom would go nuts at the chance to help out her kids.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us moved 2,000 miles away from our in-laws for a reason, you insensitive clod!