Article

A recently-developed assistive technology nicknamed "the Hummer" was
investigated as a potential powered wheelchair controller for individuals with
severe and multiple disabilities. System performance in a noisy environment was
compared to that obtained with a commercial automatic speech recognition (ASR)
system. METHOD: A bi-hum driving protocol was developed to allow the Hummer to
serve as a powered wheelchair controller. Participants performed several virtual
wheelchair driving tasks of increasing difficulty using the two systems.
Custom-written software recorded task execution time, number of commands issued
and wall collisions, speed, and trajectory. RESULTS: The bi-hum protocol was
shown to be non-intuitive and required user training. Overall, the Hummer
achieved lower performance relative to ASR. Once users became accustomed to the
protocol, the difference in performance between the two systems became
insignificant, particularly for the higher-difficulty task. CONCLUSIONS: The
Hummer provides a promising new alternative for powered wheelchair control in
everyday environments for individuals with severe and multiple disabilities who
are able to hum, particularly for those with severe dysarthria which precludes
ASR usage. A more intuitive driving protocol is still needed to reduce user
frustration and mitigate user-generated errors; recommendations on how this can be achieved are given herein. [Box: see text].

Langue : ANGLAIS