Project Description:
Many types of orthopedic or neuromuscular impairments can impact upper body mobility. These include amputation, paralysis, multiple sclerosis, and many other impairments. The impact on upper body mobility can range from full upper body paralysis to limited functionality in hands for grasping. The U.S. Census Bureau has indicated that more than 8.2% of U.S. population or 19.9 million Americans suffer from upper body limitations. An upper body mobility can have a severe effect on the quality of

life of the patient. It can prevent the patient from performing everyday tasks such as picking up a cup or opening a door. Patients with severe mobility issues can often tele-operate a robot arm to assist with daily tasks . However, the current form of tele-operation requires significant cognitive and physical eort from the user. This often causes the tele-operating task to be time-consuming and exhaustive. Shared autonomy has been shown to be able to decrease operator-fatigue and reduce the time taken per task. Furthermore, novel methods through non-verbal inputs such as eye gaze have shown to augment shared autonomy capabilities and their effects. Motivated by these results, the project aims to create an assistive robot that would aid a user in everyday tasks by predicting his/her intent through gaze and speech. We believe that our intuitive system would allow for greater independence to patients with limited mobility.

Project Goals:
To demonstrate a working prototype involving a serial manipulator which recognizes the intent of user through gaze, voice commands, and hand gestures, and picks up the object the user intents for.