The Veterans Affairs Personal Adaptive Mobility Aid (VA-PAMAID) is a robotic walker that is designed to provide physical support and obstacle avoidance and navigational assistance to frail visually impaired individuals. The goal of this study was to develop and implement testing protocols to determine the performance and safety capabilities of the device and use the results to redesign the walker to make it more reliable and effective.
Engineering tests were performed to determine factors such as stability, range, speed, and fatigue strength. Additional tests to characterize the reliability and accuracy of the sensors and avoidance/navigation algorithms were also conducted. The walker traveled 10.9 kilometers on a full charge, and was able to avoid obstacles while traveling at a speed of up to 1.2 m/s. There were no failures during static stability, climatic, or static, impact, and fatigue testing. Some problems were encountered during obstacle climbing and sensor and control testing. Several significant differences were found with respect to the detection distance of the device when varying the obstacle height, material, approach angle, and lighting source. The walker also failed to detect 40-50% of the doorways during the hallway test.
Clinical trials were conducted to compare the VA-PAMAID to a low-tech mobility aid (AMD). Subjects were recruited and trained to use both devices efficiently. Each participant was then asked to traverse an obstacle course several times. The time to complete the course, number of wall and obstacle collisions, and number of reorientations were all recorded and averaged. There were no significant differences between the VA-PAMAID and the AMD with respect to collisions or reorientations. The AMD had a significantly lower completion time (p=0.017) than the VA-PAMAID on the obstacle course.
The results of the engineering and clinical tests were then used in a house of quality model to determine what factors of the walker needed to be revised. Specific modifications were recommended that would make the device safer, more reliable, and more marketable. Changing the wheel size, mass, component positions, detection algorithm, and other variables would make the VA-PAMAID easier to use and more effective for elderly visually impaired individuals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-03242004-102741 |
| Date | 09 June 2004 |
| Creators | Rentschler, Andrew J |
| Contributors | Dr. Bruce Blasch, Dr. Richard Simpson, Dr. Rory Cooper, Dr. Michael Boninger |
| 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-03242004-102741/ |
| 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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