Post #12
This is our literature review of the papers we reviewed from the previous post. Each is about a paragraph summarizing the paper and noting the important takeaways which are relevent to our project/implementation.
Paper 1: Dusty: an assistive mobile manipulator that retrieves dropped objects for people with motor impairments
Authors:
Chih-Hung King, Tiffany L. Chen, Zhengqin Fan, Jonathan D. Glass & Charles C. Kemp
Venue & Year: Taylor & Francis online, 2011
Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/17483107.2011.615374
Motivation:
This paper is about the implementation of a robot called Dusty, a human in the loop system for assisting patients of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) with the task of picking dropped items off the floor.
Methods:
The robot was created, and a group of ALS patients (Lou Gehrig's Disease) were brought in for a 35 minute trial in order to test the robot and a realistic scenario, simulating a dropped TV remote.
Findings:
The robot has limited autonomy, requiring humans to steer the base into position in front of the dropped object, before engaging an autonomous procedure for scooping an item off of the floor. Overall, the study found that patients enjoy using Dusty as opposed to their current methods of picking up a dropped item (doing it with their own arms, using a mechanical claw, asking a family member, asking a service animal), with 14/20 participants responding in this way. As key takeaways for our study, we should also measure success with participants using a 7 level Likert score to judge our solution. We should also ensure that our UI has an emergency run-stop feature in order to prevent any harm to the patient or surrounding areas in the event of the robot failing. Finally, it seems that as long as the UI is simple to use, helping the robot navigate the environment is something humans don’t mind doing, why would allow us the use a human in the loop approach to solve our problem.
Paper 2: The Domesticated Robot: Design Guidelines for Assisting Older Adults to Age in Place
Authors:
Jenay M. Beer, Cory-Ann Smarr, Tiffany L. Chen, Akanksha Prakash, Tracy L. Mitzner, Charles C. Kemp, & Wendy A. Rogers
Venue & Year: ACM, 2012
Link: https://dl-acm-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/doi/pdf/10.1145/2157689.2157806
Motivation:
This paper was trying to understand what needs to happen in order for older adults to accept assistive robots into their lives/homes. The paper is authored by a psychology department, so it uses that lens to approach the problem, rather than a pure technological perspective.
Methods:
The researchers conducted interviewsm seperating the male and female participants, about which tasks seniors would want robots doing in their homes. They were told to assume that a robot exists which could do these tasks (for example, folding laundry, picking up objects off the floor, etc).
Findings:
The authors reiterated that no matter how advanced the tech is, it needs to be easy for old people to use, first and foremost, or they won’t feel comfortable using it and allowing it into their own homes. Also, old people would prefer that the robot doesn’t do absolutely everything, which gives a feeling of some level of autonomy and independence. Adding to that, the seniors interviewed seemed to mostly prefer help from robots with physical tasks, not emotional/mental tasks such as remembering to do things. Finally, the paper outlined these metrics as important to keep in mind when developing a personal assistive care robot:
Customizability: Capability to tailor programs or behaviors to user preferences
Interaction / Collaboration: Ability to work as a robot-human team to meet a common goal
Manipulation: Level of dexterous manipulation (i.e., fine, gross)
Payload: Range of weight of expected objects for the robot to interact with
Range of motion: Large kinematic workspace to reach high/low/near/far
Storage / size: Physical attributes such as footprint, height, and mass
Paper 3: Challenges in Designing a Fully Autonomous Socially Assistive Robot for People with Parkinson’s Disease
Authors:
Jason R. Wilson, Linda Tickle-Degnen, Matthias Scheutz
Venue & Year: ACM, 2020
Link: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3379179
Motivation:
This research focused on using an assistive robot to help people with Parkinson's disease manage their medications.
Methods:
They experimented with two different groups, university students and people with Parkinson's disease, using the physical Nao robot as well as the virtual Nao robot to assist them with sorting different medications through different days and time of the week. The researchers had a script along with a prototype video to perform a task analysis and capture the objects used, environmental demands, social demands, required actions, prerequisite capacities, and safety concerns. The Nao robot uses different sensory components to collect video and audio information and combines the results of the vision component and the speech component into a single event that is being sent to the Think components. This allows the robot to autonomously decide how to respond to its observations.
Findings:
It's important to take autonomy into consideration while designing technology for people with Parkinson's disease. We should empower the user to choose each action they take while balancing the amount of assistance provided by the robot. The paper states that the results for the two different groups they experimented with were surprisingly different because the older adults had very different expectations and level of familiarity with technology from younger populations. We should design a robot that can incorporate a planner into its decision making process. In this way, the robot can find different ways to achieve the same goal and provide a more customized experience for the user. Lastly, we should have a better understanding of how people with PD feel about an assistive robot and whether they feel like they have enough autonomy which is significant for them to be acceptable of this type of assistive technology.
Paper 4: ENRICHME: Perception and Interaction of an Assistive Robot for the Elderly at Home
Authors:
Serhan Coşar, Manuel Fernandez-Carmona, Roxana Agrigoroaie, Jordi Pages, François Ferland, Feng Zhao, Shigang Yue, Nicola Bellotto & Adriana Tapus
Venue & Year: Springer, 2020
Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12369-019-00614-y#citeas
Motivation:
Assistive robotics is an important field that helps improve the quality of human life. This paper presents the ENRICHME project which aims to provide physical, social and cognitive assistance to elderly people with mild cognitive impairments.
Methods:
The ENRICHME project had some key technological advances that enabled the robotic innovations which includes:
an improved multisensor human perception for an assistive robot enhanced by a thermal camera
a new RFID-based object mapping and localization for mobile robots
a set of use case experiences and qualitative results from real human–robot interactions with elderly users
Findings:
The mobile robot in ENRICHME is particularly useful for two tasks: RFID object mapping and user monitoring. Even though the range of RFID antennas is small enough to be embedded in mobile devices, they would not be sufficient to detect all the objects in a typical home environment. Furthermore, the location of the tagged objects could not be dynamically mapped without a robot, since mobile devices do not integrate enough sensors and they do not have the capability to model the environment continuously through their cameras.
Paper 5: Wearable Solutions for Patients with Parkinson’s Disease and Neurocognitive Disorder: A Systematic Review
Authors:
Asma Channa, Nirvana Popescu, Vlad Ciobanu
Venue & Year: MDPI, 2020
Link: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/9/2713
Motivation:
The paper wants to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of wearable solutions for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and neurocognitive disorder (NCD). The author aims to identify the potential benefits of wearable solutions for these patient populations in terms of how wearables can help in various fitness and rehabilitation exercises, as well as the challenges and limitations that need to be addressed in order to fully realize their potential.
Methods:
The author searched several databases, including PubMed, IEEE Xplore, and ScienceDirect, and identified 23 studies that met the inclusion criteria. And the study includes a range of wearable solutions, such as sensors, smartwatches, and virtual reality devices.
Findings:
The author found that these wearable solutions have the potential to improve the quality of life for patients with PD and NCD by providing real-time monitoring, feedback, and support. However, there are also several challenges and limitations associated with wearable solutions for PD and NCD patients. These include issues related to data privacy and security, the need for personalized and adaptive solutions, and the lack of standardization and interoperability among different wearable devices and platforms.
Applicable parts in our project:
Freezing of gait (FOG) is one of the most debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's disease and is an important contributor to falls, leading to it being a major cause of hospitalization and nursing home admissions. When the management of freezing episodes cannot be achieved through medication or surgery, non-pharmacological methods such as cueing have received attention in recent years. It may provide a suitable intervention for FOG symptoms for use in home-based environments.
One of the study highlighted in the paper talks about a type of wearable cueing devices. The auditory cueing devices include Android applications based on Google Glass, GaitAssist (equipped with two inertial sensors and a smartphone with android application and wired headphones), FOG detection devices with wireless ear sets, Metronome Peterson bodyBeat and Metronome SDM300 SAMICK (Peterson Electro-Musical Products, Inc., Alsip, IL, USA), and devices with a movement sensor enabled with Bluetooth and wired headphones. These devices produce a typical and distinctive sounding tones (i.e., tap, tick, click, and beat) in beats/minute. In this way, it generates temporal information such as step interval, through the rhythmical beat. Some visual cueing devices are: Laser shoes, Smart Gait-Aid (Android app on binocular smart glasses), and Visual-auditory walker. These devices demonstrated that visual stimuli can diminish the FOG occurrence during walking. Some somatography cueing devices are: CueStim (two channel electrical stimulator), Vibrating waistband, and a Vibrating system named VibroGait.
Paper 6: ProVAR assistive robot system architecture
Authors:
H.F.M. Van der Loos, J.J. Wagner, N. Smaby, K. Chang, O. Madrigal, L.J. Leifer, O. Khatib
Venue & Year: IEEE, 2002
Link: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/770063
Motivation:
People with disabilities often face challenges in performing ADLs, which can impact their quality of life and independence. Assistive robot systems have the potential to provide support and assistance to these individuals, allowing them to perform ADLs more easily and independently. The ProVAR system is designed to address these challenges by providing a modular and adaptable robot platform that can be customized to meet the needs of individual users. The system is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, with a simple and easy-to-use interface that allows users to control the robot and perform ADLs.
Methods:
The ProVAR system is designed to assist people with disabilities in performing activities of daily living (ADLs). The system consists of a mobile robot platform, a manipulator arm, and a set of sensors and cameras. The robot is controlled by a software system that includes a user interface, a task planner, and a perception system.
Applicable parts in our project:
We can apply their description of their interface design in our own project. Similar to their project, we also use an interface computer to interact with Stretch.
Some good interactions techniques used by their system could also be applicable for ours. We can also use voice recognition to command the robot instead of letting the patient clicking on tiny buttons on the screen.
Their paper also serves as a good example in terms of how to write software, hardware implementations in research paper and it could be useful for us when we are drafting project reports.
Paper 7: The Role of Assistive Robotics in the Lives of Persons with Disability
Authors:
Steven W. Brose, DO
Douglas J. Weber, PhD
Ben A. Salatin, BS
Garret G. Grindle, MS
Hongwu Wang, MS
Juan J. Vazquez, MS
Rory A. Cooper, PhD
Venue & Year: American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 2010
Motivation:
Researchers continue to provide great contributions to the world of physically and socially assistive robots (PAR and SAR). This paper serves as a compilation of successful research advancements in types of PARs and User Interfaces.
Methods:
No individual methodology for this paper since it serves as an overview of others' work.
Findings:
For physically assistive robots, this paper mainly focuses on robots aiding patients with tetraplegia and neuromuscular disease. They begin with reviewing several stationary manipulator robots, performing tasks such as feeding, simple dressing tasks (like putting on glasses), and opening cabinet doors. Here they note a lack of strength in the manipulator doubles as an important safety procedure.
More applicable to our project, they review two types of mobile manipulators, a simple arm on wheels called Herb (very similar to Stretch), and motorized wheelchairs with an arm (KARES and PerMMA). These PAR are focused around helping patients perform everyday household tasks, with a current emphasis on kitchen tasks.
The rest of the paper focuses on user interfaces (UI). The most abdicable part for us is the section on cooperative control. Here the PAR is controlled by both user input and autonomous behavior reliant on feedback from various sensors.
Paper 8: Robot-assisted walking training for individuals with Parkinson’s disease: a pilot randomized controlled trial
Authors:
Patrizio Sale, Maria Francesca De Pandis, Domenica Le Pera, Ivan Sova, Veronica Cimolin, Andrea Ancillao, Giorgio Albertini, Manuela Galli, Fabrizio Stocchi and Marco Franceschini
Venue & Year: BMC Neurology, 2013
Link: https://bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2377-13-50
Motivation:
Physical therapy has proven to be a successful treatment for motor impairments in Parkinson's patients. Most physical therapy techniques involve spending short amounts of time each day on a treadmill so the patient can safely practice walking. The researchers believed the use of robots could improve the effectiveness of this training.
Methods:
The researchers split the participants into two groups, an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). The EG used the G-EO robot to help train the patients' gates. The CG continued to use a regular treadmill.
Findings:
"Robot training was feasible, acceptable, safe, and the participants completed 100% of the prescribed training sessions. A statistically significant improvement in gait index was found in favour of the EG (T0 versus T1). In particular, the statistical analysis of primary outcome (gait speed) using the Friedman test showed statistically significant improvements for the EG (p = 0,0195). The statistical analysis performed by Friedman test of Step length left (p = 0,0195) and right (p = 0,0195) and Stride length left (p = 0,0078) and right (p = 0,0195) showed a significant statistical gain. No statistically significant improvements on the CG were found."
Applicable parts in our project:
This paper shows robot based aid to physical therapy is beneficial to Parkinson's patients. While we are not doing any direct gate training, we are empowering patients to continue to walk in their own homes, which serves as at-home physical therapy.
Paper 9: Robot-assisted walking training for individuals with Parkinson’s disease: a pilot randomized controlled trial
Authors:
Xiaoyang Zhao, Zhi Zhu1, Mingshan Liu1, Chongyu Zhao, Yafei Zhao, Jia Pan, Zheng Wang, and Chuan Wu1
Venue & Year: frontiers in Neurorobotics, 2020
Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2020.575889/full (PDF download on page)
Motivation:
Similar to our project, the researchers are focused on empowering the elderly by increasing the capabilities of the average walker.
Methods:
The researcher built, from the ground up, a robotic walker with,
Pressure sensors in the handles to tell when the user is relying on the walker for standing
Motion sensors by the users legs to tell when the user is walking, the robots motorized wheels watch the user's speed
The walker will move around with the user even when they are not relying on it to walk
The walker can find the user when it is called for with an auditory cue
Applicable parts in our project:
This serves as a great example of another approach to the same problem.