SBIR Phase I: Development of the WeeBot, an Infant-controlled Powered Ride-on Device for Children with Motor Impairments

SBIR 第一阶段：开发 WeeBot，一种婴儿控制的电动骑乘设备，适用于运动障碍儿童

• 批准号: 2151611
• 负责人: Carole Dennis
• 金额: $ 25.6万
• 依托单位: ASSISTANCE IN MOTION, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2151611&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Development; WeeBot; Infant

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Phase I project is its innovative and potentially transformative contribution to assistive technologies for infants with motor impairment. In the United States, over 40,000 infants per year are born with conditions, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and Down syndrome, that often result in motor impairment. There is currently no device that provides independent movement to infants with motor limitations. Since children learn a great deal about their physical and social environments when they begin to crawl/walk, conditions that deny or delay independent movement can impact cognitive, language, and social development. A device that will let these infants move and explore at the same age as other children could mitigate these developmental delays and facilitate full integration into society. Lifetime cost of healthcare for these children has been estimated at $250,000. Providing early independent movement could result in a potential $50,000 lifetime reduction in additional interventions such, as behavioral and occupational therapy, special education, and the need for healthcare and educational aides. This amounts to over $200,000,000 in savings per year to the health and education systems.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the need, expressed by parents and therapists, for a device that will allow infants with motor impairment to move independently at the same age as their typically developing peers. Currently, no such device is available. The intellectual merit of the proposed work is the development of a novel control method for a powered device that can be used by infants as young as 6 months old: The device moves in the direction that the infant leans (as when reaching toward a toy or parent) while preventing collisions and falls. Previous research has shown that infants as young as five months old can learn to use this control method to purposefully steer a powered device in all directions. The research objectives of this project are to build and validate a second-generation prototype that can be used by parents and clinicians outside of a research setting. Successful completion of these objectives will advance the device from a research testbed to a viable, if limited, prototype, enabling future work to evaluate the impact of the device on the development of cognitive, social, and communication skills for infants with disabilities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该第一阶段项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是其对运动障碍婴儿辅助技术的创新和潜在变革性贡献。在美国，每年有超过 40,000 名婴儿出生时患有脑瘫、脊柱裂和唐氏综合症等疾病，这些疾病通常会导致运动障碍。目前还没有任何设备可以为运动受限的婴儿提供独立运动。由于孩子在开始爬行/行走时会大量了解自己的身体和社会环境，因此拒绝或延迟独立运动的条件可能会影响认知、语言和社交发展。一种让这些婴儿与其他孩子同龄的活动和探索的设备可以减轻这些发育迟缓并促进他们充分融入社会。 这些儿童的终生医疗费用估计为 250,000 美元。提供早期独立活动可能会导致终身减少 50,000 美元的额外干预措施，例如行为和职业治疗、特殊教育以及对医疗保健和教育助手的需求。 这相当于每年为健康和教育系统节省超过 2 亿美元。这个小型企业创新研究 (SBIR) 第一阶段项目满足了家长和治疗师表达的对一种设备的需求，该设备可以让运动障碍婴儿独立移动与正常发育的同龄人处于同一年龄。目前，还没有这样的设备可用。 这项工作的智力优点是开发了一种新颖的动力设备控制方法，可供 6 个月大的婴儿使用：该设备沿着婴儿倾斜的方向移动（例如当伸手去拿玩具或玩具时）。父母），同时防止碰撞和跌倒。 先前的研究表明，年仅五个月大的婴儿就可以学会使用这种控制方法来有目的地向各个方向操纵动力设备。该项目的研究目标是构建和验证第二代原型，可供家长和临床医生在研究环境之外使用。成功完成这些目标将使该设备从研究测试台发展为可行的（如果有限制的话）原型，从而使未来的工作能够评估该设备对残疾婴儿认知、社交和沟通技能发展的影响。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。