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Rehabilitation and Assistive Robotics: Latest Advances and Prospects

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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Robotics and Automation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2025 | Viewed by 4981

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Dr. Antonio Bandera

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Guest Editor

Department of Electronic Technology, University of Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain
Interests: assistive robotics; embedded vision; machine learning; image processing; pattern recognition; computer vision; architecture robotics; algorithms; artificial intelligence; mobile robotics
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Robots are currently able to coexist with people in everyday environments. They are not only able to move autonomously in these environments, but are also able to interact and socialize with people. By harnessing this enormous potential, robotics can provide numerous solutions to help people, either through physical interaction or through social interaction. Assistive robotics refers to robots that help people with physical disabilities through physical interaction. They can provide perception abilities and perform actions that can be beneficial for the elderly or physically challenged people. Socially assistive robotics (SAR) arises from the intersection between assistive robotics and socially interactive robotics. This category includes robots that provide assistance through social interaction. In this case, their success stems from the emotional bonds that are created between the human user and the robot, for example, by improving motivation to maintain a rehabilitation treatment. This Special Issue will cover recent research in the field of rehabilitation as well as on assistive robotics and social assistive robots.

Socially assistive robots for children;
Assistive robots for the elderly;
Wearable robotics;
Effective human–robot interaction;
Robotic solutions that support caregivers;
Ethical implications of assistive/social assistive robotics;
Quantitative user studies.

Dr. Antonio Bandera
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 4749 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Socially Assistive Robots in Smart Environments to Attend Elderly People—A Survey

by Alejandro Cruces, Antonio Jerez, Juan Pedro Bandera and Antonio Bandera

Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(12), 5287; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14125287 - 19 Jun 2024

Viewed by 1615

Abstract

The aging of the population in developed and developing countries, together with the degree of maturity reached by certain technologies, means that the design of care environments for the elderly with a high degree of technological innovation is now being seriously considered. Assistive environments for daily living (Ambient Assisted Living, AAL) include the deployment of sensors and certain actuators in the home or residence where the person to be cared for lives so that, with the help of the necessary computational management and decision-making mechanisms, the person can live a more autonomous life. Although the cost of implementing such technologies in the home is still high, they are becoming more affordable, and their use is, therefore, becoming more popular. At a time when some countries are finding it difficult to provide adequate care for their elderly, this option is seen as a help for carers and to avoid collapsing health care services. However, despite the undoubted potential of the services offered by these AAL systems, there are serious problems of acceptance today. In part, these problems arise from the design phase, which often does not sufficiently take into account the end users—older people but also carers. On the other hand, it is complex for these older people to interact with interfaces that are sometimes not very natural or intuitive. The use of a socially assistive robot (SAR) that serves as an interface to the AAL system and takes responsibility for the interaction with the person is a possible solution. The robot is a physical entity that can operate with a certain degree of autonomy and be able to bring features to the interaction with the person that, obviously, a tablet or smartphone will not be able to do. The robot can benefit from the recent popularization of artificial intelligence-based solutions to personalize its attention to the person and to provide services that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Their inclusion in an AAL ecosystem should, however, also be carefully assessed. The robot’s mission should not be to replace the person but to be a tool to facilitate the elderly person’s daily life. Its design should consider the AAL system in which it is integrated, the needs and preferences of the people with whom it will interact, and the services that, in conjunction with this system, the robot can offer. The aim of this article is to review the current state of the art in the integration of SARs into the AAL ecosystem and to determine whether an initial phase of high expectations but very limited results have been overcome. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rehabilitation and Assistive Robotics: Latest Advances and Prospects)

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20 pages, 6117 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Study on the UWB-Based Position Estimation Method Using Dead Reckoning Information for Active Driving in a Mapless Environment of Intelligent Wheelchairs

by Eunsu Jang, Su-Hong Eom and Eung-Hyuk Lee

Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(2), 620; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14020620 - 11 Jan 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1274

Abstract

As the world enters an aging and super-aged society, the application of advanced technology in assistive devices to support the daily life of the elderly is becoming a hot issue. Among them, electric wheelchairs are representative assistive devices for the walking support of the elderly, and their structural form is similar to AGV and AMR. For this reason, research is being introduced and underway to guarantee the right to voluntarily move or improve the convenience of movement for the elderly and severely disabled people who have difficulties in operating a joystick for operating an electric wheelchair. Autonomous driving of mobile robots is a technology that configures prior information on the driving environment as a map DB and operates based on it. However, active driving assistance technology is needed because wheelchairs do not move in a limited space, but can move to a place without a prior map DB or vehicle boarding depending on the passenger’s intention to move. Therefore, a system for estimating the moving position and direction of the wheelchair is needed to develop a driving assistance technology in the relevant driving environment. In order to solve the above problem, this study proposes a position and direction estimation algorithm suitable for active driving of a wheelchair based on a UWB sensor. This proposal is an algorithm for estimating the position and direction of the wheelchair through the fusion of UWB, IMU, and encoder sensors. In this proposal, it is difficult to design an active driving assistance system for wheelchairs due to low accuracy, obstacles, and errors due to signal strength in the position and direction estimation with UWB sensors alone. Therefore, this study proposes a wheelchair driving position and direction estimation system that fuses the dead recording information of a wheelchair and the UWB-based position estimation technique based on sensors applied in IMU and encoders. Applying quantitative verification to the proposed technique, the direction estimation accuracy of the wheelchair of about 15.3° and the position estimation error average of ±15 cm were confirmed, and it was verified that a driving guide for active driving was possible when the sensor system proposed in a mapless environment of the wheelchair was installed at a specific destination. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rehabilitation and Assistive Robotics: Latest Advances and Prospects)

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18 pages, 4351 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on Elevator Recognition Techniques for Upper-Limb-Disabled Wheelchair Users

by Daewe Kim, Su-Hong Eom and Eung-Hyuk Lee

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(22), 12182; https://doi.org/10.3390/app132212182 - 9 Nov 2023

Viewed by 1333

Abstract

This study proposes a LiDAR-sensor-based elevator recognition technique to prevent collisions caused by poor operation and the cognitive decline of wheelchair users with upper limb disabilities. Existing elevator recognition studies show high performance for elevator door recognition, but this can only be recognized at a position where the elevator can be viewed directly due to the angle of view range of the sensor. This is not appropriate for wheelchair users who are inexperienced in operation because alignment must be performed directly based on the elevator. Therefore, this study presents a LiDAR-sensor-based elevator recognition technique that can detect elevators from the side to the position and at an angle to the front in order to solve this problem. In addition, this study proposes a technique for recognizing elevator gates finished with low- and high-reflective materials in order to enable recognition in various elevator environments. In order to quantitatively verify the elevator recognition technique proposed in this study, experiments were conducted in an elevator environment consisting of low and high reflections. The results of the experiments confirmed that there was no problem in applying the wheelchair active driving technique. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Rehabilitation and Assistive Robotics: Latest Advances and Prospects)

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