A multimodal human machine interface for a robotic mobility aid

This paper presents design, implementation details and field trial results for a multimodal human machine interface for a robotic walking and sit-to-stand transfer assisting device with force-torque-sensor, user intention detection and active fall prevention. Two different human machine interfaces are described, a purely haptic version with buttons only and an alternative approach using a tablet computer. It is described, how the different modalities, optimized for the target user group of elderly persons, make the interaction with the system intuitive and reduce fear of contact with such a technical system. For the tablet PC based touch sensitive interface we describe our approach to automatically track user interactions with the system for detailed analysis and user interface optimization.