Functional assessment and performance evaluation for assistive robotic manipulators: Literature review

Abstract

Context:The user interface development of assistive robotic manipulators can be traced back to the 1960s. Studies include kinematic designs, cost-efficiency, user experience involvements, and performance evaluation. This paper is to review studies conducted with clinical trials using activities of daily living (ADLs) tasks to evaluate performance categorized using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) frameworks, in order to give the scope of current research and provide suggestions for future studies. Methods: We conducted a literature search of assistive robotic manipulators from 1970 to 2012 in PubMed, Google Scholar, and University of Pittsburgh Library System -PITTCat. Results: Twenty relevant studies were identified. Conclusion: Studies were separated into two broad categories: user task preferences and user-interface performance measurements of commercialized and developing assistive robotic manipulators. The outcome measures and ICF codes associated with the performance evaluations are reported. Suggestions for the future studies include (1) standardized ADL tasks for the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of task efficiency and performance to build comparable measures between research groups, (2) studies relevant to the tasks from user priority lists and ICF codes, and (3) appropriate clinical functional assessment tests with consideration of constraints in assistive robotic manipulator user interfaces. In addition, these outcome measures will help physicians and therapists build standardized tools while prescribing and assessing assistive robotic manipulators.

One-Shot Evaluation of the Control Interface of a Robotic Arm by Non-experts

“…Two buttons are used to select whether to move the hand position (mode 1), its orientation (mode 2) or the fingers (mode 3). The GUI was developed with Qt and is open-source 4 . Both interfaces use the same Kinova API for robot control and inverse kinematics solving.…”

“…Guo & Sharlin noted that preferences for a tangible interface was related to a stronger performance in using it [15]. Many studies on control interfaces for robots focused on graphical user interfaces for their better acceptance by non-experts, for example [6] for teaching objects to a robot, [4] for applications in rehabilitation and medicine. In [5] the authors proposed an Android interface for moving the Jaco arm, but unfortunately it was not thoroughly evaluated by final users.…”

Free-View, 3D Gaze-Guided, Assistive Robotic System for Activities of Daily Living

“…The user triggers the task by fixating on a recognised object. According to [18], meal preparation and drink retrieval were considered top desired tasks for disabled patients. It was decided that the automatic mode should incorporate these functions.…”

“…Removing the fixation requirement of 2s and the ROS node sleep rate of 1s, the average time to determine the user's 3D fixation point and to plan a valid path is 6.92s. Although activation time is an important aspect for a Human-Robot Interaction system, studies showed that patients did not feel the time to complete the task was significant, but rather they are content with being able to perform the task independently [18].…”

Performance Evaluation of a Mobile Touchscreen Interface for Assistive Robotic Manipulators: A Pilot Study

“…The primary physical UIs of commercial ARMs, including a 4x4 keypad 7 and 3-axis joystick, 8,9 provide robotic control for Cartesian, joint, and finger movements. 10 Previous studies demonstrated their cost-effectiveness and long-term usage. 4,11,12 The joystick has 3 degrees of freedom allowing horizontal and twisting movement.…”