Call for Participation

Within the field of rehabilitation, most robotics work to date involves the use of therapy machines that physically
assist a patient in performing rehabilitation exercises. There is limited incorporation of autonomy, which offers a huge opportunity for advances in robotics to make an impact within the field.

In some cases, the technology itself remains an open research question. There are seemingly unbounded opportunities for robotic assistants that physically or mentally aid users, or even serve as body surrogates. In many cases, however, the robotics technology is largely in place, and it is the application an user acceptance which remains to be addressed. In our experience, there is often a significant disconnect between what clinicians believe   is feasible technically, and what engineers believe are the pressing patient needs. This workshop aims to take steps towards bridging this gap.

One of the goals of this workshop is to explicitly identify areas of low hanging fruit---for which the robotics technology is in place, but its widespread application to the field of rehabilitation is not. Towards this end, our invited speakers and panelists will include clinicians, therapists and medical researchers normally unassociated with robotics research and conferences like IROS. In this year's venue, we are presented with a unique opportunity in that Chicago is also home to the RIC---the nation's premier rehabilitation hospital (ranked #1 by U.S. World and News Report). The afternoon session for the workshop will be held on-site, at RIC, and will include tours of clinical floors in addition to invited talks from and panel discussion with clinicians and therapists.

This workshop aims to bring together people from within the medical domain and robotics researchers, within and
outside of the area of assistive robotics, to gain exposure to the capabilities and needs of each field, and identify
opportunities for robotics technologies to have feasible and lasting impact on human assistance and rehabilitation. The list of invited speakers will include distinguished persons from both areas.

Accepted Papers and Abstracts

Full Papers

Sachithra Hemachandra and Matthew R. Walter. Learning Semantic Maps Through Dialog for a Voice-Commandable Wheelchair.

Thomas M. Howard, Istvan Chung, Oron Propp, Matthew R. Walter and Nicholas Roy. Efficient Natural Language Interfaces for Assistive Robots.

A. Kyrylova, T. Desplenter, A. Escoto, S. Chinchalkar and A.L. Trejos. Simplified EMG-Driven Model for Active-Assisted Therapy.

Nicolas Ragot, Guillaume Caron, Mohamed Sakel and Kostas Sirlantzis. COALAS : A EU Multidisciplinary Research Project for Assistive Robotics Neuro-rehabilitation.

Elias B. Thorp, Farnaz Abdollahi, David Chen, Ali Farshchiansadegh, Mei-Hua Lee, Jessica Pedersen, Camilla Pierella, Elliot J. Roth, Ismael Seanez Gonzalez and Ferdinando A. Mussa-Ivaldi1. Using Upper-Body Motions to Control Power Wheelchairs for Individuals with Tetraplegia.

Extended Abstracts

Henny Admoni and Brian Scassellati. The Role of Robots in Socially Assistive Applications.

Priyanshu Agarwal, Jonas Fox, Youngmok Yun, Marcia K. O’Malley and Ashish D. Deshpande. Additive Manufacturing and Series Elastic Actuation for Hand Exoskeletons.

Momotaz Begum, Richard Serna, David Kontak and Holly Yanco. Robots in Clinical Settings for Therapy of Individuals with Autism: Are We There Yet?

Matthew Derry and Brenna Argall. A Probabilistic Representation of User Intent for Assistive Robots.

Dan Ding, Jushua Chung, Hyun Ka, Hongwu Wang and Rory Cooper. Shared Control of Assistive Robotic Manipulators.

Hartmut Geyer. Decentralized Control in Natural and Artificial Legged Systems.

Jillian Greczek and Maja Matarić. Toward Encouraging User Autonomy in Socially Assistive Human-Robot Interaction.

Laura Herlant, Ben Weinstein-Raun and Siddhartha Srinivasa. Shared Control in Modal Teleoperation.

Nadia Garcia-Hernandez, Ioannis Sarakoglou, Nikos Tsagarakis and Darwin Caldwell. Under-Actuated Hand Exoskeleton with Novel Kinematics for Potential Use in Rehabilitation.

Maria Javaid, Lin Chen, Uzair Ahmed, Miloš Žefran and Barbara Di Eugenio. Multimodal Communication Interface for Elderly Assistive Robot.

Yeongjin Kim, Shing Shin Cheng, Kelly P. Westlake and Jaydev P. Desai. Towards a Robotic Hand Rehabilitation Exoskeleton for Stroke Therapy.

Daniel A. Lazewatsky and William D. Smart. Reclaiming Microinteractions for People with Motor Disabilities.

Angus Leigh and Joelle Pineau. Laser-Based Person Tracking for Clinical Locomotion Analysis.

RJ Linton, Jerry Schaufeld and Taşkin Padir. Smart Wheelchairs or Not: Lessons Learned From Discovery Interviews.

Elon Martin, Taymaz Homayouni and Ravi Balasubramanian. A Passive Implant that Scales Muscle Force in Knee-Replacement Surgery.

Todd D. Murphey and Brenna D. Argall. Towards Software-Enabled Rehabilitation.

Dmitry Popov, Igor Gaponov and Jee-Hwan Ryu. Towards Wearable Lightweight Assistive Robotics: Novel Actuation Principles, Applications, and Challenges.

Andreas Wachaja, Pratik Agarwal, and Wolfram Burgard. A Navigation Aid for Blind People with Walking Disabilities.