PR2 Robots Help Quadriplegic to be Independent

Henry Evans, a quadriplegic, is now able to perform his daily tasks like shaving on his own with the help of the PR2 Robot. Georgia Institute of Technology and Willow Garage have come together for executing a project called Robots for Humanity.

Henry and Jane Evans from California have aided in the execution of the project by giving valuable feedback. During the course of the project work, it was found that these robots showed great potential in helping disabled people.

Charlie Kemp sounded positive about the usefulness of these robots in helping people to carry on their daily tasks. He is the director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech and assistant professor of biomedical engineering.Henry Evans got to know about the PR2 robots through a demonstration on CNN and contacted the developers, Willow Garage, to find out if they would be ready to work with him in building the robot. Since then, the research team at Willow Garage has been making various interfaces, tools and software that suit Henry’s daily tasks. Students from Georgia Tech along with other research team members have been working with Henry and Jane since March. The team has visited Henry’s home to get a better understanding of his needs. Kemp maintained that Henry’s involvement has greatly impacted their research work with his suggestions as an end-user. Henry had provided the team with a PowerPoint design of the interface to guide the initial implementation.

One of the students explained that all the controls are web enabled, so Henry can control the robot present in Atlanta sitting at his home in California. Apart from the above mentioned team members, post doc Chih-Hung Aaron King has been aiding the research. Evan’s is able to control the interface using a head tracker, through which he is able to move the arms and head of the robot. He can also direct the robot to perform autonomous actions through the tracker. The next step in the project, according to Kemp, is to make Evans operate the robot independently without intervention from the researchers.