Projects

Individuals with Severe Speech and Motor Impairment (SSMI) struggle to interact with their surroundings due to physical and communicative limitations. To address these challenges, this paper presents a gaze-controlled robotic system that helps SSMI users perform stamp printing tasks. The system includes gaze-controlled interfaces and a robotic arm with a gripper, designed specifically for SSMI users to enhance accessibility and interaction. User studies with gaze-controlled interfaces such as video see-through (VST), video pass-through (VPT), and optical see-through (OST) displays demonstrated the system's effectiveness. [Paper link: https://cambum.net/ICRA25/ICRA25_Himanshu.pdf ]

Healthcare robotics has emerged as an innovative system with vast potential across various domains. This paper explores the development and application of collaborative robots for teleoperation, which facilitate safe and remote medical general examinations of patients. The study aims to help medical staff to provide vital sign check-ups remotely using legacy medical devices. We proposed an immersive media tool that was integrated with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) interfaces to enhance the reach of medical professionals for vital signs check-ups. The medical cobot was teleoperated through AR and VR interfaces. We evaluated the human-robot interaction dynamics and usefulness of medical cobot within a healthcare setup. A qualitative user study was used to compare the AR and VR interface systems within the loop of healthcare professionals. [Paper link:10.1109/RO-MAN60168.2024.10731386 ]

On-orbit manual attitude control of manned spacecraft is accomplished using external visual references and some method of three axis attitude control. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spacecraft permit an aircraft windshield type “front view”. Russian and Chinese spacecraft permit the crew a “bottom view”. Our study compared these two types of external views for efficiency in achievement of de-orbit attitude. We used a Unity Virtual Reality (VR) spacecraft simulator that we built in house. We used ocular parameters, EEG, NASA TLX and IBM SUS to quantify our results. We realized that a VR based system can work as a training simulator for manual on-orbit flight path control tasks by astronauts (both pilots and non-pilots). [Paper link: 10.1109/SPACE63117.2024.10668244 ]

In the past years, energy consumption has increased rapidly due to many factors, including the rise in technology adoption. This has many downfalls, from higher costs to CO2 emissions. Human activities in offices and houses represent a considerable amount of energy usage. We made a Digital Twin (DT) of an open-plan common space that can be used for remote room occupancy monitoring and automatic energy consumption detection. We proposed a linear regression-based mapping technique to mimic the office users’ movement. We also proposed an intelligent machine vision model to detect electrical appliances’ ON/OFF status in the physical space. [Paper link: 10.1007/s44257-024-00008-z ]

Robotics is a trailblazing technology that has found extensive applications in the field of assistive aids for individuals with severe speech and motor impairment (SSMI). This article describes the design and development of an eye gaze-controlled user interface to manipulate the robotic arm. User studies were reported to engage users through eye gaze input to select stamps from the two designs and select the stamping location on cards using three designated boxes present in the User Interface. The user interface contains the print button to initiate the robotic arm that enables the user to independently create personalized stamped cards. Extensive user interface trials revealed that individuals with severe speech and motor impairment showed improvements with a 33.2% reduction in the average time taken and a 42.8% reduction in the standard deviation for the completion of the task.  [Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1145/3640544.3645236 ]