Trends in Adaptive Interface Design for Smart Wheelchairs

Abstract

This chapter introduces the main trends in the design of interfaces for smart wheelchairs. It stresses the importance of taking into account their similarity with autonomous mobile robots and the restrictions posed by the special characteristics of the users (people with severe motor and speech restrictions) and the task (indoor assisted navigation). With this background, the main features of the user-wheelchair interface are discussed, justifying the need for the adoption of an adaptive approach. The TetraNauta smart wheelchair interface design is used to illustrate the design of user, context, and task models. In addition, it describes some mechanisms to enhance the communication rate when a single-switch-scanning input device is used (scanning rate dynamic adaptation and word prediction). The chapter finishes with a discussion of the influence of new navigation models, such as the behaviour-based one, in the design of the user interface.