A smart environment is an assistive technology space that can enable people with motor disabilities to control their equipment (TV, radio, fan, etc.) through a human-machine interface activated by different inputs. However, assistive technology resources are not always considered useful, reaching quite high abandonment rate. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a smart environment controlled through infrared oculography by people with severe motor disabilities. The study sample was composed of six individuals with motor disabilities. Initially, sociodemographic data forms, the Functional Independence Measure (FIMTM), and the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) were applied. The participants used the system in their domestic environment for a week. Afterwards, they were reevaluated with regards to occupational performance (COPM), satisfaction with the use of the assistive technology resource (QUEST 2.0), psychosocial impact (PIADS) and usability of the system (SUS), as well as through semi-structured interviews for suggestions or complaints. The most common demand from the participants of this research was ‘control of the TV’. Two participants did not use the system. All participants who used the system (four) presented positive results in all assessment protocols, evidencing greater independence in the control of the smart environment equipment. In addition, they evaluated the system as useful and with good usability. Non-acceptance of disability and lack of social support may have influenced the results.

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This work proposes a new architecture for controlling the navigation of a mobile robot, which consists of fusing the output of distinct controllers through a decentralized information filter (DIF). The output of each controller is inputted to a local filter with a covariance associated to it. The lower this covariance is, the bigger the influence of the output of the corresponding controller on the fused output is. A fuzzy logic approach is proposed to qualitatively determine such covariances. It is also carried out an analysis of the stability of the proposed control architecture. A conjecture based on energy considerations is introduced, which assures that the overall control signal emerging from the fusion engine behaves well. In order to ensure the accomplishment of such conjecture, a supervisor is included in the proposed architecture. One out of several experiments using the proposed control architecture is also presented, in order to illustrate the system performance.

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Knowing that the driving task of a conventional wheelchair could be difficult or even impossible for impairment people, this work presents an overview of some strategies developed to aid these people. Within this context, a myoelectrical eye-blink and an iris tracking system to guide a robotic wheelchair are briefly described. Futhermore, some comments about EEG-based systems are also presented. Finally, it is presented a robotic wheelchair navigation system capable to reach a desired pose in a planar environment while avoiding static and dynamic obstacles.

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