While technological developments over the past several decades have greatly enhanced the lives of people with mobility impairments, between 10 and 40 percent of clients who desired powered mobility found it very difficult to operate electric powered wheelchairs (EPWs) safely because of sensory impairments, poor motor function, or cognitive deficits [1]. The aim of this research is to improve control of personalized mobility for those with multiple sclerosis (MS) by examining isometric and movement joystick interfaces with customizable algorithms.
A variable compliance joystick (VCJ) with tuning software was designed and built to provide a single platform for isometric and movement, or compliant, interfaces with enhanced programming capabilities.
The VCJ with three different algorithms (basic, personalized, personalized with fatigue adaptation) was evaluated with four subjects with MS (mean age 58.7±5.0 yrs; years since diagnosis 28.2±16.1 yrs) in a virtual environment. A randomized, two-group, repeated-measures experimental design was used, where two subjects used the VCJ in isometric mode and two in compliant mode.
While still too early to draw conclusions about the performance of the joystick interfaces and algorithms, the VCJ was a functional platform for collecting information. Inspection of the data shows that the learning curve may be long for this system. Also, while subjects may have low trial times, low times could be related to more deviation from the target path.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-02272007-111302 |
| Date | 24 April 2007 |
| Creators | Brown, Karl Walter |
| Contributors | Donald M. Spaeth, PhD, Dan Ding, PhD, Rory A. Cooper, PhD |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-02272007-111302/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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