An assistive robotic agent for pedestrian mobility

  • Authors:

  • Glenn Wasson;Jim Gunderson;Sean Graves;Robin Felder

  • Affiliations:

  • Medical Automation Research Center, University of Virginia Medical Center, UVA HSC Box 800168, Charlottesville, VA;Computer Science Department, 151 Engineers Way, P.O. Box 400740, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA;Medical Automation Research Center, University of Virginia Medical Center, VA HSC Box 800168, Charlottesville, VA;Medical Automation Research Center, University of Virginia Medical Center, VA HSC Box 800168, Charlottesville, VA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Autonomous agents
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

The goal of this project is to develop a pedestrian mobility aid for the elderly. In order for this type of assistive technology to be useful and accepted by its intended user community, it must enhance the abilities of users, not replace them. This leads to an agent architecture in which the agent must operate without hindering the user's ability to take direct action when they choose. In other words, the agent cannot simply be a proxy for the user's actions. The agent must select its own goals based on observations of its users actions. This is crucial not only because users may have diminished capacity to explain their actions to an agent, but because the ability of the agent to correctly interpret the user's goals is tied to its ability to act while still allowing the user to “feel in control”. We present a mobility aid, i. e. a wheeled walker, which varies its goals and level of activity based on an estimation of its user's intentions. The assistive agent often takes no action, allowing the user to be fully in control. When the ease or safety of the users travel is threatened, the agent attempts to influence the users motion based on its belief in the users goal. By varying the degree of autonomy, the walker can adjust to the user as their abilities change from day to day, or hour to hour. This prevents the walker from trying to do too much, allowing the user to feel as if they are in control and not being lead.