Fall C L, Turgeon P, Campeau-Lecours A, Maheu V, Boukadoum M, Roy S, Massicotte D, Gosselin C, Gosselin B
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2015 Aug;2015:4399-402. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7319370.
Assistive Technologies (ATs) also called extrinsic enablers are useful tools for people living with various disabilities. The key points when designing such useful devices not only concern their intended goal, but also the most suitable human-machine interface (HMI) that should be provided to users. This paper describes the design of a highly intuitive wireless controller for people living with upper body disabilities with a residual or complete control of their neck and their shoulders. Tested with JACO, a six-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) assistive robotic arm with 3 flexible fingers on its end-effector, the system described in this article is made of low-cost commercial off-the-shelf components and allows a full emulation of JACO's standard controller, a 3 axis joystick with 7 user buttons. To do so, three nine-degree-of-freedom (9-DOF) inertial measurement units (IMUs) are connected to a microcontroller and help measuring the user's head and shoulders position, using a complementary filter approach. The results are then transmitted to a base-station via a 2.4-GHz low-power wireless transceiver and interpreted by the control algorithm running on a PC host. A dedicated software interface allows the user to quickly calibrate the controller, and translates the information into suitable commands for JACO. The proposed controller is thoroughly described, from the electronic design to implemented algorithms and user interfaces. Its performance and future improvements are discussed as well.
辅助技术（AT）也被称为外部助力器，是帮助各类残疾人生活的有用工具。设计此类实用设备时的关键点不仅涉及其预期目标，还包括应向用户提供的最合适的人机界面（HMI）。本文描述了一种专为上身残疾人士设计的高度直观的无线控制器，这些残疾人对其颈部和肩部仍有残余控制能力或完全具备控制能力。通过JACO进行测试，JACO是一种六自由度（6-DOF）辅助机器人手臂，其末端执行器有3个灵活手指，本文所述系统由低成本的商用现货组件制成，可完全模拟JACO的标准控制器，即一个带有7个用户按钮的3轴操纵杆。为此，三个九自由度（9-DOF）惯性测量单元（IMU）连接到一个微控制器，并采用互补滤波器方法帮助测量用户的头部和肩部位置。然后，测量结果通过一个2.4 GHz低功耗无线收发器传输到基站，并由运行在PC主机上的控制算法进行解读。一个专用软件界面允许用户快速校准控制器，并将信息转换为适合JACO的命令。本文从电子设计到实现的算法和用户界面，对所提出的控制器进行了全面描述。还讨论了其性能和未来改进方向。
