Remote Wireless Oral Control of a Robotic Manipulator and a Powered Wheelchair, and Its Evaluation with Paralyzed Users
Source abstract
Abstract
The objective of this feasibility study was to demonstrate and evaluate a remotely tongue-controlled wheelchair mounted assistive robotic manipulator (ARM), for the first time with end users: three individuals with cervical spinal cord injury. For three days, they remotely tongue-controlled the wheelchair and the ARM (WMARM) to complete two activities of daily living (ADL): Driving the wheelchair and ARM to a remote setting to (1) pick up a bottle and (2) pick up a ball. The participants controlled the system using full manual control by tongue and through semi-automation. Finally, the participants answered a NASA Task Load Index (TLX) questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. Results: All participants were able to remotely control the WMARM by tongue. Semi-automation resulted in shorter task completion time, gripping time and fewer commands as compared with manual control. Semi-automation decreased the measured mental load in the NASA TLX questionnaire by an average of 57%. The participants rated high satisfaction with the system. Conclusion: It was possible for the users with tetraplegia to control the wheelchair with the ARM using their tongue to perform ADL in Wi-Fi-based remote setting. This proposed system has the potential to increase independence and social interaction of individuals with tetraplegia.
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Gaze Tracking and Assistive Technology · Spinal Cord Injury Research · Assistive Technology in Communication and Mobility
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
Affiliations
The Center for Rehabilitation Robotics, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, 9260 Gistrup, Denmark
The Spinal Cord Injury Centre of Western Denmark, Department of Neurology, Regional Hospital of Viborg, 8800 Viborg, Denmark
The Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, 8200 Aarhus, Denmark
Funding
Independent Research Fund Denmark
References (37)
Show source-provided references
1. Life satisfaction 18 months and 10 years following spinal cord injury: Results from a New Zealand prospective cohort study10.1007/s11136-022-03313-w ↗
2. Expectations of independence and life satisfaction among ageing spinal cord injured adults10.1080/096382899297657 ↗
3. Functional Decline is Associated with Hopelessness in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis10.4172/2155-9562.1000423 ↗
4. Bhattacharjee, T., Cabrera, M.E., Caspi, A., Cakmak, M., and Srinivasa, S.S. (2019). A community-centered design framework for robot-assisted feeding systems. ASSETS 2019—21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.10.1145/3308561.3353803 ↗
5. (2025, February 01). Kinova Gen2 Dexterous and User-Friendly Robotic Arm|Kinova. Available online: https://www.kinovarobotics.com/product/gen2-robots.
6. (2025, February 01). Assistive Innovations—iARM. Available online: https://www.assistive-innovations.com/robotarm.
7. Development of a robotic arm for handicapped people: A task-oriented design approach10.1023/A:1024449018826 ↗
8. Ranganeni, V., Nguyen, V., Evans, H., Evans, J., Mehu, J., Olatunji, S., Rogers, W., Edsinger, A., Kemp, C., and Cakmak, M. (2024). Robots for Humanity: In-Home Deployment of Stretch RE2. ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Association for Computing Machinery.10.1145/3610978.3641114 ↗
9. Cabrera, M.E., Bhattacharjee, T., Dey, K., and Cakmak, M. (2021). An exploration of accessible remote tele-operation for assistive mobile manipulators in the home. 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2021, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515511 ↗
10. Jackowski, A., Gebhard, M., and Gr, A. (2016). A Novel Head Gesture Based Interface for Hands-free Control of a Robot. 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), IEEE.10.1109/MeMeA.2016.7533744 ↗
11. Remote Tongue-based Control of a Wheelchair Mounted Assistive Robotic Manipulator and the Effect of Adaptive Semi-automation10.1109/TBME.2024.3435837 ↗
12. Wireless intraoral tongue control of an assistive robotic arm for individuals with tetraplegia10.1186/s12984-017-0330-2 ↗
13. Kæseler, R.L., Leerskov, K., Struijk, L.N.S.A., Dremstrup, K., and Jochumsen, M. (2019). Designing a brain computer interface for control of an assistive robotic manipulator using steady state visually evoked potentials. 2019 IEEE 16th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), IEEE.10.1109/ICORR.2019.8779376 ↗
14. Autonomy infused teleoperation with application to brain computer interface controlled manipulation10.1007/s10514-017-9622-4 ↗
15. Development and functional demonstration of a wireless intraoral inductive tongue computer interface for severely disabled persons10.1080/17483107.2016.1217084 ↗
16. Struijk, L.N.S.A., Bentsen, B., Gaihede, M., and Lontis, R.E. (2023). Usability of the inductive tongue computer interface: Internet use, speaking, and drinking—Evaluated by two users with disabilities. Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
17. TKS Technology A/S (2016). Itongue User Manual, TKS Technology A/S. Available online: http://tks-technology.dk/index.php/support/.
18. A tactile oral pad based on carbon nanotubes for multimodal haptic interaction10.1038/s41928-024-01234-9 ↗
19. Chu, F.J., Xu, R., Zhang, Z., Vela, P.A., and Ghovanloo, M. (2018). Hands-Free Assistive Manipulator Using Augmented Reality and Tongue Drive System. IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), IEEE.10.1109/IROS.2018.8594508 ↗
20. How Autonomy Impacts Performance and Satisfaction: Results from a Study with Spinal Cord Injured Subjects Using an Assistive Robot10.1109/TSMCA.2011.2159589 ↗
21. Assisted teleoperation strategies for aggressively controlling a robot arm with 2D input
22. A policy-blending formalism for shared control10.1177/0278364913490324 ↗
23. Depth-sensor-based shared control assistance for mobility and object manipulation: Toward long-term home-use of BCI-controlled assistive robotic devices10.1088/1741-2552/adae36 ↗
24. Padmanabha, A., Gupta, J., Chen, C., Yang, J., Nguyen, V., Weber, D.J., Majidi, C., and Erickson, Z. (2024). Independence in the Home: A Wearable Interface for a Person with Qadriplegia to Teleoperate a Mobile Manipulator. ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, IEEE Computer Society.10.1145/3610977.3634964 ↗
25. Chen, T.L., Ciocarlie, M., Cousins, S., Grice, P., Hawkins, K., Hsiao, K., Kemp, C.C., King, C.H., Lazewatsky, D.A., and Leeper, A. (2012). Robots for Humanity: User-Centered Design for Assistive Mobile Manipulation. 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IEEE.10.1109/IROS.2012.6386286 ↗
26. Hawkins, K.P., Grice, P.M., Chen, T.L., King, C.-H., and Kemp, C.C. (2014). Assistive Mobile Manipulation for Self-Care Tasks Around the Head. 2014 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotic Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies (CIR2AT), IEEE.10.1109/CIRAT.2014.7009736 ↗
27. Grice, P.M., and Kemp, C.C. (2019). In-home and remote use of robotic body surrogates by people with profound motor deficits. PLoS ONE, 14.10.1371/journal.pone.0212904 ↗
28. Kemp, C.C., Edsinger, A., Clever, H.M., and Matulevich, B. (2022). The Design of Stretch: A Compact, Lightweight Mobile Manipulator for Indoor Human Environments. Proceedings—IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.10.1109/ICRA46639.2022.9811922 ↗
29. An Inductive Tongue Computer Interface for Control of Computers and Assistive Devices10.1109/TBME.2006.880871 ↗
30. A Dedicated Tool Frame Based Tongue Interface Layout Improves 2D Visual Guided Control of an Assistive Robotic Manipulator: A Design Parameter for Tele-Applications10.1109/JSEN.2022.3164551 ↗
31. Continuous tongue robot mapping for paralyzed individuals improves the functional performance of tongue-based robotic assistance10.1109/TBME.2021.3055250 ↗
32. Random Sample Consensus: A Paradigm for Model Fitting with Applications to Image Analysis and Automated Cartography10.1145/358669.358692 ↗
33. Error-Free Text Typing Performance of an Inductive Intra-Oral Tongue Computer Interface for Severely Disabled Individuals10.1109/TNSRE.2017.2706524 ↗
34. Lopes, D.G. (2025, May 26). tcp-Latency, 0.0.12. Available online: https://pypi.org/project/tcp-latency/.
35. On the tip of the tongue: Learning typing and pointing with an intra-oral computer interface10.3109/17483107.2013.823629 ↗
36. Ranganeni, V., Dhat, V., Ponto, N., and Cakmak, M. (2024). AccessTeleopKit: A Toolkit for Creating Accessible Web-Based Interfaces for Tele-Operating an Assistive Robot. UIST 2024—Proceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.10.1145/3654777.3676355 ↗
37. Kirtas, O., Mohammadi, M., Bentsen, B., Veltink, P., and Struijk, L.N.S.A. (2021). Design and evaluation of a noninvasive tongue-computer interface for individuals with severe disabilities. BIBE 2021—21st IEEE International Conference on BioInformatics and BioEngineering, Proceedings, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.10.1109/BIBE52308.2021.9635238 ↗