Kinova Jaco wheelchair robot arm and hand for rehabilitation and assistance to the disabled

Kinova Jaco 轮椅机器人手臂和手，用于残疾人康复和援助

• 批准号: RTI-2017-00889
• 负责人: Jagersand, Martin
• 金额: $ 4.74万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Research Tools and Instruments
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=616783
• 关键词: Kinova; Jaco; wheelchair; robot; arm

Robot arms and hands can potentially help disabled and elderly with daily manipulation tasks. Power wheelchairs are common today and provide mobility, and thus freedom and independence to people who would otherwise be home bound. Our research aims to give upper-body disabled individuals the ability to live a more independent life. Many users of power wheelchairs also have reduced arm function. Here robot arms and hands can help. However, having more joints and motors, these are far more complex to control than the wheelchair. We propose to research from issues in motion and force control to human-robot interfaces. The group of four co-PI span three departments, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Rehabilitation Medicine and are thus well qualified to take on this interdisciplinary research. To perform realistic experiments we need to purchase a wheelchair mounted robot arm and and hand. Kinova's Jaco robot is specifically designed to be light and slender so as to mount on the armrest of a wheelchair. Currently the Jaco arm and hand is controlled through the wheelchair joystick. However while a 2Degree-Of-Freedom (DOF) wheelchair joystick is sufficient for controlling the speed and direction of the two wheel motors in a wheelchair, it is cumbersome when used to control the 7 motors in the Jaco arm and hand. The user has to switch which spatial directions and rotations that the joystick controls numerous times in order to complete a manipulation task. Our goal is to use vision and other sensing to simplify the control interface to the robot. Computer vision can detect objects; once the user selects what objects they intend to grasp, the system could then calculate appropriate motion trajectories to these objects. In this approach, reachable objects would be shown on a screen and the user merely selects what object he or she wants to manipulate. The robot arm can then use the calculated trajectory to perform the detailed motion control to move towards the selected object. This greatly simplifies the user interaction from numerous joystick motions and mode switches to a single selection. Electromyography (EMG) provides the potential to control the robot also for individuals with other motor impairments who cannot use a physical interaction device. Currently the Jaco is position controlled. To enable nimbler interactions with the environment we intend to research force control based not on conventional end effector sensors, but on joint torque sensors and arm modeling. The wheelchair arm and hand system is portable and will be shared between the four PI between labs in Science, Medicine, and Engineering. We will also bring it to the Glenrose Rehabilitation hospital for patient tests.

机器人手臂和手可以帮助残疾人和老年人完成日常操作任务。电动轮椅如今很常见，它为那些原本只能呆在家里的人提供了行动能力，从而带来了自由和独立。我们的研究旨在使上半身残疾人能够过上更独立的生活。许多电动轮椅使用者的手臂功能也有所减弱。在这里，机器人手臂和手可以提供帮助。然而，由于拥有更多的关节和电机，它们的控制比轮椅复杂得多。我们建议从运动和力控制问题到人机界面进行研究。由四名联合PI组成的小组横跨计算机科学、电气工程和康复医学三个系，因此完全有资格承担这项跨学科研究。为了进行真实的实验，我们需要购买安装在轮椅上的机器人手臂和手。 Kinova 的 Jaco 机器人经过专门设计，重量轻且纤细，以便安装在轮椅的扶手上。目前，Jaco 的手臂和手是通过轮椅操纵杆控制的。然而，虽然 2 自由度 (DOF) 轮椅操纵杆足以控制轮椅中两个轮子电机的速度和方向，但用于控制 Jaco 手臂和手上的 7 个电机时却很麻烦。用户必须多次切换操纵杆控制的空间方向和旋转才能完成操纵任务。我们的目标是使用视觉和其他传感来简化机器人的控制界面。计算机视觉可以检测物体；一旦用户选择了他们想要抓住的物体，系统就可以计算出这些物体的适当运动轨迹。在这种方法中，可到达的对象将显示在屏幕上，用户只需选择他或她想要操作的对象。然后，机器人手臂可以使用计算出的轨迹来执行详细的运动控制，以向选定的物体移动。这极大地简化了用户交互，从众多操纵杆动作和模式切换到单一选择。肌电图 (EMG) 为患有其他运动障碍且无法使用物理交互设备的个人提供了控制机器人的潜力。目前 Jaco 是位置控制的。为了实现与环境更灵活的交互，我们打算研究基于关节扭矩传感器和手臂建模的力控制，而不是基于传统的末端执行器传感器。轮椅臂和手系统是便携式的，将由科学、医学和工程实验室的四名 PI 共享。我们还将把它带到 Glenrose 康复医院进行患者测试。