New Robotic Game Teaches Children How to Drive Wheelchairs

In hopes to lower the cost and improve accessibility to wheelchair training for children with disabilities, US researchers are creating a robot that teaches users how to drive a powered wheelchair safely. The robot is called ROLY – “RO”bot-assisted Learning for Young Drivers.

The idea is to teach children how to drive their wheelchairs at their own pace while also saving costs on the traditional one-on-one training that can take many sessions to complete and is not always available.

The robotic wheelchair trainer steers itself along a course marked by a line on the floor using computer vision. As the robot moves, the user follows behind trying to catch the robot in “robot tag.” The joystick reacts using a force feedback system and guides the user’s hand in the appropriate steering motions. The path and user reaction is used to decide how much control is taken over by the wheelchair’s joystick and it eases as the learner performs the task themselves. It is similar to having a therapist there with a hand over the learner’s hand and gradually surrendering control to the learner as they improve. ROLY applies just enough force, in addition to that applied by the learner, to lead the wheelchair in the right direction.

Studies have concluded that the robotic trainer has resulted in significantly better steering ability after a single session of training for children with and without motor impairments.

An 8 year old child with cerebral palsy and severe motor impairment completed the course with a greater amount of control in steering the wheelchair than the children performing the course without motor impairment.

When the child catches the toy robot it does a little dance and the wheelchair plays a little tune.

It is unsure when this robot will become widely available.