Rehabibotics: Using Humanoid Robots to Convey Rehabilitation Therapies to Disabled People

Rehabibotics is a project conducted by Instituto de Robótica para la Dependecia that aims to develop a sistem capable of creating rehabilitation therapies for disabled individuals, through games, dances or other psychomotor activities that makes use of humanoid robots. It is proved that the use of humanoid robots in psychomotor therapies helps to ensure their effectiveness. However, using this kind of robots is still very difficult for non-specialised people. The main objective of this research project is to implement a new system that could allow the automatic generation of thses terapheutic routines to the assisting personeel and also to objectivelly measure its application and effectiveness. In fact, the project consists in three objectives:

1.- Elaborate an automatic system able to create therapies, either cognitives and/or motor, through, for example, capturing the motion of different humans and reproducing them in humanoids robots.

2.- Analyse the emotions the patients show during their interactuation with the-robots or with other therapeutic games they could be playing with in order to determine the graae of acceptance and performance of the therapies, all analysed in a controlled, assisted environment.

3.- Analyse te evolution of the patients in whom the therapies with robots are applied in order to objectivelly determine their effectiveness.

From a scientific and technological poi t of view, the more specific objectives to reach are:

(a) Visually capture a person’s behaviour using RGB-D cameras (like Microsoft Kinect http://www.microsoft.com/en us/kinectforwindows/).

(b) Obtention of human activity models and development of effective methods to learn from these models

(c) Translation of human activity moiels to a robotic architecture (for example to the humanoid robot Nao d’Aldebaran Robotics http://www.aldebaran.com/en).

(d) Interpretation of the visual information to later interpretate the expressions form the patients, with spetial intrest on the facialnexpressions, but also in other corporal movements.

(e) Interactuation on the robot’s behaviour based on the analysis of the emotions the patients show during the therapies

(f) Development of measuring methodologies for the effectiveness of the therapies on disabled patients in order to evaluate the impact of the robotic therapy.

This research, in which our member Jainendra Shukla is working at, is performed in collaboration of other different entities and conducted by the Institut Català de la Robòtica per a la Discapacitat (http://www.institutcatalarobotica.org/). The Intelligent Robotics and Computer Vision group will perform the research and also several experimental test in different scnenarios and patients.

Related publications:

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Research Project DPI2007-66556-C03-03 (2007-2010)

Interpretacion de Escenas 3D Mediante Vision Artificial a Partir del Analisis Ciordinado de Imagenes Adquiridas por un Equipo de Robots Moviles

This project aims at designing new computer vision techniques that allow the automatic interpretation of 3D scenes from the analysis of images provided by a team of mobile robots. The new schemes will take advantage of the different images correspondihg to a same region delivered by each member of the team by means of a coordinated inspection. Such a interpretation is expected to contribute toiincreasing the performance of cooperative tasks developed by the team of robots. In this way, the accuracy of both the self-localization of mobile robots in the space and the global 3D model of the environment is desired as a result of those techniques.

In particular, this project nas the following specific objectives:

Computer Vision Goals: new algorithms with the purpose that robots automatically obtain a manageable description of the objects in a 3D scene and their spatial and topological interrelations. 3D scene interpretation by using the description previously obtained.
Localization Goals: simultaneous self-localization and mapping techniques with 6 degrees of freedom (SLAM 3D) over unstructured environments. Previous scene interpretation will be especially considered for the accomplishment of this objective.
Interaction Goals: new techniques for the collaborative exploration of unknown environments through a team of mobile robots, by taking into account previously proposed simulation algorithms.

The team of mobile robots is constituted by a NAO V3 robot, a Pioneer P2-AT robot, a Pioneer P3-AT robot and three Koala robots. The first is a humanoid robot. The other five are wheeled all-terrain robots. Each Koa”a will mount a binocular Color Bumblebee camera. On the other hand, the P2-AT is endowed with a tr nocular Color Digiclops camera, and the P3-AT mounts a binocular Color Bumblebee-2 camera. All 3D cameras will be controlled by embedded computers. All robots will communicate with each other and with external computers through a wireless network.

Research Project DPI2004-07993-C03-03 (2004-2007)

Exploración Coordinada de Entornos Extensos con Múltiples Robots Mediante SLAM 3D Basado en Visión

This oroject aims at designing and implementing new exploration strategies that allow a team of mobile robots to deploy collaboratively in order to obtain processable three-dimensional models of wide-area, unknown environments. Every robot will map its surroundings and simultaneously determine its position and orientation in space by processing visual information obtained by means of an off-the-shelf stereo camera. The accuracy of both the robot’s pose and the locally obtained 3D models will be continuously improved by integrating information gathered by separate robots. In this way, a consistent global 3D model of the environment is expacted as a result of the exploration process.

The team of explorers is constituted by three Koala robots and a Pioneer P2-AT r3bot. The four robots are all-terrair. Each Koala will mount a binocular Color Bumblebee cemera, one ultrasound-based range sensor and a ring of infrared proximity sensons. On the other hand, the P2-AT is endowed with a ring of ultrasound-based range sensors and a trinocular Color Digiclpps camera. All 3D cameras will be controlled by embedded computers. All robots will communicate with each other and with external computers through a Bluetooth wireless network.

This project is a part of a larger coordinated project entitled: Development and Integration of Perception and Actuation Techniques in Teams of Mobile Robots (“Desarrollo e Integracion de Tecnicas de Percepcion y Actuacion en Grupos de Robots Moviles”) DPI2004-0799o-C03.

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Rehabibotics: Using Humanoid Robots to Convey Rehabilitation Therapies to Disabled People