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Healthcare Robotics Lab

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Author: King, Chih-Hung ×

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Assistive Mobile Manipulation for Self-Care Tasks Around the Head
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014) Hawkins, Kelsey P. ; Grice, Phillip M. ; Chen, Tiffany L. ; King, Chih-Hung ; Kemp, Charles C.
    Human-scale mobile robots with arms have the potential to assist people with a variety of tasks. We present a proof-of-concept system that has enabled a person with severe quadriplegia named Henry Evans to shave himself in his own home using a general purpose mobile manipulator (PR2 from Willow Garage). The robot primarily provides assistance by holding a tool (e.g., an electric shaver) at user-specified locations around the user’s head, while he/she moves his/her head against it. If the robot detects forces inappropriate for the task (e.g., shaving), it withdraws the tool. The robot also holds a mirror with its other arm, so that the user can see what he/she is doing. For all aspects of the task, the robot and the human work together. The robot uses a series of distinct semi-autonomous subsystems during the task to navigate to poses next to the wheelchair, attain initial arm configurations, register a 3D model of the person’s head, move the tool to coarse semantically-labeled tool poses (e.g, “Cheek”), and finely position the tool via incremental movements. Notably, while moving the tool near the user’s head, the robot uses an ellipsoidal coordinate system attached to the 3D head model. In addition to describing the complete robotic system, we report results from Henry Evans using it to shave both sides of his face while sitting in his wheelchair at home. He found the process to be long (54 minutes) and the interface unintuitive. Yet, he also found the system to be comfortable to use, felt safe while using it, was satisfied with it, and preferred it to a human caregiver.
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    Robots for Humanity: A Case Study in Assistive Mobile Manipulation
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-03) Chen, Tiffany L. ; Ciocarlie, Matei ; Cousins, Steve ; Grice, Phillip M. ; Hawkins, Kelsey ; Hsiao, Kaijen ; Kemp, Charles C. ; King, Chih-Hung ; Lazewatsky, Daniel A. ; Nguyen, Hai ; Paepcke, Andreas ; Pantofaru, Caroline ; Smart, William D. ; Takayama, Leila
    Assistive mobile manipulators have the potential to one day serve as surrogates and helpers for people with disabilities, giving them the freedom to perform tasks such as scratching an itch, picking up a cup, or socializing with their families. This article introduces a collaborative project with the goal of putting assistive mobile manipulators into real homes to work with people with disabilities. Through a participatory design process in which users have been actively involved from day one, we are identifying and developing assistive capabilities for the PR2 robot. Our approach is to develop a diverse suite of open source software tools that blend the capabilities of the user and the robot. Within this article, we introduce the project, describe our progress, and discuss lessons we have learned.
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    Informing Assistive Robots with Models of Contact Forces from Able-Bodied Face Wiping and Shaving
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012-09) Hawkins, Kelsey P. ; King, Chih-Hung ; Chen, Tiffany L. ; Kemp, Charles C.
    Hygiene and feeding are activities of daily living (ADLs) that often involve contact with a person's face. Robots can assist people with motor impairments to perform these tasks by holding a tool that makes contact with the care receiver's face. By sensing the forces applied to the face with the tool, robots could potentially provide assistance that is more comfortable, safe, and effective. In order to inform the design of robotic controllers and assistive robots, we investigated the forces able-bodied people apply to themselves when wiping and shaving their faces. We present our methods for capturing and modeling these forces, results from a study with 9 participants, and recommendations for assistive robots. Our contributions include a trapezoidal force model that assumes participants have a target force they attempt to achieve for each stroke of the tool. We discuss advantages of this 3 parameter model and show that it fits our data well relative to other candidate models. We also provide statistics of the models' rise rates, fall rates, and target forces for the 9 participants in our study. In addition, we illustrate how the target forces varied based on the task, participant, and location on the face.
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    Touched By a Robot: An Investigation of Subjective Responses to Robot-initiated Touch
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-03) Chen, Tiffany L. ; King, Chih-Hung ; Thomaz, Andrea L. ; Kemp, Charles C.
    By initiating physical contact with people, robots can be more useful. For example, a robotic caregiver might make contact to provide physical assistance or facilitate communication. So as to better understand how people respond to robot-initiated touch, we conducted a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 56 people in which a robotic nurse autonomously touched and wiped the subject's forearm. Our independent variables were whether or not the robot verbally warned the person before contact, and whether the robot verbally indicated that the touch was intended to clean the person's skin (instrumental touch) or to provide comfort (affective touch). On average, regardless of the treatment, participants had a generally positive subjective response. However, with instrumental touch people responded significantly more favorably. Since the physical behavior of the robot was the same for all trials, our results demonstrate that the perceived intent of the robot can significantly influence a person's subjective response to robot-initiated touch. Our results suggest that roboticists should consider this factor in addition to the mechanics of physical interaction. Unexpectedly, we found that participants tended to respond more favorably without a verbal warning. Although inconclusive, our results suggest that verbal warnings prior to contact should be carefully designed, if used at all.
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    Towards an Assistive Robot that Autonomously Performs Bed Baths for Patient Hygiene
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-10) King, Chih-Hung ; Chen, Tiffany L. ; Jain, Advait ; Kemp, Charles C.
    This paper describes the design and implementation of a behavior that allows a robot with a compliant arm to perform wiping motions that are involved in bed baths. A laser-based operator-selection interface enables an operator to select an area to clean, and the robot autonomously performs a wiping motion using equilibrium point control. We evaluated the performance of the system by measuring the ability of the robot to remove an area of debris on human skin. We tested the performance of the behavior algorithm by commanding the robot to wipe off a 1-inch square area of debris placed on the surface of the upper arm, forearm, thigh, and shank of a human subject. Using image processing, we determined the hue content of the debris and used this representation to determine the percentage of debris that remained on the arm after the robot completed the task. In our experiments, the robot removed most of the debris (>96%) on four parts of the limbs. In addition, the robot performed the wiping task using relatively low force (<;3 N).
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    Effects of Force Feedback and Arm Compliance on Teleoperation for a Hygiene Task,
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-07) King, Chih-Hung ; Killpack, Marc D. ; Kemp, Charles C.
    Teleoperated assistive robots with compliant arms may be well-suited to tasks that require contact with people and operation within human environments. However, little is known about the effects of force feedback and compliance on task performance. In this paper, we present a pilot study that we conducted to investigate the effects of force feedback and arm compliance on the performance of a simulated hygiene task. In this study, each subject (n=12) teleoperated a compliant arm to clean dry-erase marks off a mannequin with or without force feedback, and with lower or higher stiffness settings for the robot’s arm. Under all four conditions, subjects successfully removed the dry-erase marks, but trials performed with stiffer settings were completed significantly faster. The presence of force feedback significantly reduced the mean contact force, although the trials took significantly longer.
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    Dusty: A Teleoperated Assistive Mobile Manipulator that Retrieves Objects from the Floor
    (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010-06) Fan, Zhengqin ; King, Chih-Hung ; Darb, Hamza ; Kemp, Charles C.
    Retrieval of dropped objects has consistently been ranked as a high priority task for assistive robots. We have previously presented a dustpan-inspired end effector capable of robustly grasping objects from the floor. In this paper, we present and evaluate Dusty, a complete mobile manipulator consisting of a new version of this end effector, a mobile base, a scissor lift, and a wireless interface. The interface consists of a joystick for driving, a button that triggers a grasping behavior, and a button that operates the lift. We first tested Dusty’s ability to grasp objects from 25 object categories prioritized for robotic retrieval by people with ALS. Dusty succeeded in 97.6% of the 125 trials and grasped each object no fewer than 3 out of 5 times. We then tested Dusty’s ability to grasp a small, thin cylinder (ca. 2.92cm diameter and 0.71cm height) placed at different locations. Grasping succeeded when the object was in a large region in front of the robot (ca. 15cm x 38cm), which we expect to improve usability. In preparation for testing with motor-impaired subjects, we conducted a pilot study with able-bodied subjects (n=10) in which each subject drove Dusty around an obstacle, picked up an object, and then delivered the object to him or herself, all while sitting in a stationary wheelchair. The subjects succeeded at this task in all 30 trials (3 trials each) with a mean completion time of 67.8 seconds (SD = 20.8 s). Our results suggest that assistive robots like Dusty could be useful for retrieving dropped objects and enhancing quality of life.