Multimodal haptic interface for walker-assisted navigation

Wang, Yikun; Sierra M, Sergio D.; Harris, Nigel; Múnera, Marcela; Cifuentes, Carlos A.

Abstract

This study investigates the efficacy of a haptic interface, aiming to offer the walking frame users accurate, intuitive, and easily understandable directional cues. The research introduces a novel haptic feedback interface incorporated into a walking frame to enhance navigation assistance. The haptic handle encompasses three distinct haptic feedback modalities: vibration, skin stretch, and combined feedback. Ten participants, all in good health, engaged with the haptic handle for navigation. Across all three haptic feedback methods, 60% of participants found the combined feedback to be the most effective, while 40% favoured the vibration feedback; none selected the skin-stretch feedback. Comparative analysis revealed significant disparities between vibration and combined input regarding velocity (p-value: 0.04). These findings emphasize the haptic handle's capacity to give users an instinctive perception of directional cues, thus offering a promising avenue for assistive navigation.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2024)
• Start Date: Oct 14, 2024
• End Date: Oct 18, 2024
• Acceptance Date: Jun 30, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Dec 25, 2024
• Publication Date: Dec 25, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 10, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 7, 2025
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 141-146
• Series ISSN: 2153-0866
• Book Title: 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10801733
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/12876236
• Related Public URLs: https://iros2024-abudhabi.org/about