Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis

Melanie Jouaiti; Negin Azizi; Steven Lawrence; Kerstin Dautenhahn

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-24670-8_7

Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis

Melanie Jouaiti^*, Negin Azizi, Steven Lawrence, Kerstin Dautenhahn

^*Corresponding author for this work

Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

Between 2% to 5% of children are affected by Development Coordination Disorders in Canada and have been diagnosed with upper limb impairments, which affect their daily life by reducing their autonomy. The vast diversity of motor impairments and their severity make adaptive solutions imperative when children use a joystick. However, currently those joystick need to be manually tuned and there exists no off-the-shelf affordable adaptive joystick that those children could use to play computer games. The long term of our project is to develop such a joystick. The first step towards that goal consists in collecting joystick data from children with upper limb impairments. In this paper, children with upper limb impairments played a computer game where they navigated a simulated robot through a maze. We analyzed their joystick data and observed a great heterogeneity and variability in the data which made it difficult for the classifier we trained to distinguish between them. This highlights challenges for machine learning techniques that would require fine granularity in terms of the statistical features of each joystick axis as well as temporal variation. These results provide crucial insights for the future development of adaptive robot controllers to support robot-assisted play for children with upper limb challenges.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Social Robotics
Subtitle of host publication	14th International Conference, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, December 13–16, 2022, Proceedings, Part II
Editors	Filippo Cavallo, John-John Cabibihan, Laura Fiorini, Alessandra Sorrentino, Hongsheng He, Xiaorui Liu, Yoshio Matsumoto, Shuzhi Sam Ge
Publisher	Springer
Pages	64-73
Number of pages	10
ISBN (Electronic)	9783031246708
ISBN (Print)	9783031246692
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24670-8_7
Publication status	Published - 2 Feb 2023
Event	14th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2022 - Florence, Italy Duration: 13 Dec 2022 → 16 Dec 2022

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume	13818 LNAI
ISSN (Print)	0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)	1611-3349

Conference

Conference	14th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2022
Country/Territory	Italy
City	Florence
Period	13/12/22 → 16/12/22

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. We would like to sincerely thank all the participants who willingly participated, as well as the organization who made this possible (not named in order to preserve the privacy of the children). This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada 150 Research Chairs Program.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

Adaptive controllers
Assistive technology
Upper limb impairments

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Theoretical Computer Science
General Computer Science

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-031-24670-8_7Licence: None: All rights reserved

Cite this

Jouaiti, M., Azizi, N., Lawrence, S., & Dautenhahn, K. (2023). Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis. In F. Cavallo, J.-J. Cabibihan, L. Fiorini, A. Sorrentino, H. He, X. Liu, Y. Matsumoto, & S. S. Ge (Eds.), Social Robotics: 14th International Conference, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, December 13–16, 2022, Proceedings, Part II (pp. 64-73). (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 13818 LNAI). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24670-8_7

Jouaiti, Melanie ; Azizi, Negin ; Lawrence, Steven et al. / Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis. Social Robotics: 14th International Conference, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, December 13–16, 2022, Proceedings, Part II. editor / Filippo Cavallo ; John-John Cabibihan ; Laura Fiorini ; Alessandra Sorrentino ; Hongsheng He ; Xiaorui Liu ; Yoshio Matsumoto ; Shuzhi Sam Ge. Springer, 2023. pp. 64-73 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)).

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title = "Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis",

abstract = "Between 2% to 5% of children are affected by Development Coordination Disorders in Canada and have been diagnosed with upper limb impairments, which affect their daily life by reducing their autonomy. The vast diversity of motor impairments and their severity make adaptive solutions imperative when children use a joystick. However, currently those joystick need to be manually tuned and there exists no off-the-shelf affordable adaptive joystick that those children could use to play computer games. The long term of our project is to develop such a joystick. The first step towards that goal consists in collecting joystick data from children with upper limb impairments. In this paper, children with upper limb impairments played a computer game where they navigated a simulated robot through a maze. We analyzed their joystick data and observed a great heterogeneity and variability in the data which made it difficult for the classifier we trained to distinguish between them. This highlights challenges for machine learning techniques that would require fine granularity in terms of the statistical features of each joystick axis as well as temporal variation. These results provide crucial insights for the future development of adaptive robot controllers to support robot-assisted play for children with upper limb challenges.",

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Jouaiti, M, Azizi, N, Lawrence, S & Dautenhahn, K 2023, Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis. in F Cavallo, J-J Cabibihan, L Fiorini, A Sorrentino, H He, X Liu, Y Matsumoto & SS Ge (eds), Social Robotics: 14th International Conference, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, December 13–16, 2022, Proceedings, Part II. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), vol. 13818 LNAI, Springer, pp. 64-73, 14th International Conference on Social Robotics, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, 13/12/22. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24670-8_7

Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis. / Jouaiti, Melanie; Azizi, Negin; Lawrence, Steven et al.
Social Robotics: 14th International Conference, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, December 13–16, 2022, Proceedings, Part II. ed. / Filippo Cavallo; John-John Cabibihan; Laura Fiorini; Alessandra Sorrentino; Hongsheng He; Xiaorui Liu; Yoshio Matsumoto; Shuzhi Sam Ge. Springer, 2023. p. 64-73 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics); Vol. 13818 LNAI).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments. We would like to sincerely thank all the participants who willingly participated, as well as the organization who made this possible (not named in order to preserve the privacy of the children). This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada 150 Research Chairs Program. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

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N2 - Between 2% to 5% of children are affected by Development Coordination Disorders in Canada and have been diagnosed with upper limb impairments, which affect their daily life by reducing their autonomy. The vast diversity of motor impairments and their severity make adaptive solutions imperative when children use a joystick. However, currently those joystick need to be manually tuned and there exists no off-the-shelf affordable adaptive joystick that those children could use to play computer games. The long term of our project is to develop such a joystick. The first step towards that goal consists in collecting joystick data from children with upper limb impairments. In this paper, children with upper limb impairments played a computer game where they navigated a simulated robot through a maze. We analyzed their joystick data and observed a great heterogeneity and variability in the data which made it difficult for the classifier we trained to distinguish between them. This highlights challenges for machine learning techniques that would require fine granularity in terms of the statistical features of each joystick axis as well as temporal variation. These results provide crucial insights for the future development of adaptive robot controllers to support robot-assisted play for children with upper limb challenges.

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Jouaiti M, Azizi N, Lawrence S, Dautenhahn K. Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis. In Cavallo F, Cabibihan JJ, Fiorini L, Sorrentino A, He H, Liu X, Matsumoto Y, Ge SS, editors, Social Robotics: 14th International Conference, ICSR 2022, Florence, Italy, December 13–16, 2022, Proceedings, Part II. Springer. 2023. p. 64-73. (Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)). doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-24670-8_7

Towards Developing Adaptive Robot Controllers for Children with Upper Limb Impairments - Initial Data Collection and Analysis

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this