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Technology and Disabilities

Politecnico di Milano, IBM Italia and Fondazione IBM are working in Cremona to improve the life of people with disabilities. The work is aimed at the study of applications for people who are confined to an electric wheelchair and have limited use of their arms. These people "drive" their wheelchair with a joystick but, being unable to use their arms properly, they can do little else. They are unable to use a mobile phone, call a lift or select the channel on the television set at home - they rely on the help of their partners, parents or carers. Their freedom is very limited. The joystick is everything - they can use it to move, but they cannot move their hand independently to do anything else.

The aim of the research is to turn the wheelchair, with the joystick, into an independent control system. The basic idea is to adjust the joystick functions to the person's various needs. If the surrounding world were suitably equipped, the joystick could become a tool to do everything - replace the mouse to use a computer, call a lift and select the floor, even switch the house lights on and off. Increasing the joystick capacity meant increasing the person's independence. The solution currently being developed is based on a mobile phone to have practical ability, calculation power and high connectivity (GPRS/UMTS, WiFi and Bluetooth) at a limited cost. The AIRLab (Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics) of the Politecnico supplied the hardware device to intercept the joystick's movements and send them to a mobile phone via Bluetooth. The software for the system's management is being developed in the Cremona campus.

The mobile phone receives impulses from the joystick and becomes the central element to communicate with the house television set, the lift in the workplace, even with the computer on the desk. All modern mobile phones can do this. On the contrary, domestic appliances that, to date, can be controlled in this way are few and very expensive. Things however are changing rapidly and soon every relevant device will be able to communicate easily with a mobile phone (and therefore with the person in the wheelchair).

A large button near the joystick will allow disabled people to decide if they want to control the wheelchair normally or use the joystick for other functions. With the prototypes built so far it can replace a mouse and can be used to manage the basic functions of a mobile phone.  The currently existing software allows disabled people to access the contacts menu, dial a number in the contacts or send a text. There are several pre-defined texts in addition to a simplified user interface that is very easy to read and highly configurable.

The first version of the software was presented in November 2008 at the Handimatica Exhibition in Bologna, the largest exhibition-conference in Italy on technologies for the integration of disabled people. The demonstration in the IBM stand obtained a positive response and visitors offered very interesting ideas and comments. The product was also presented at the ForumPA (Rome, May 2009), an exhibition-convention on innovation in public administration and territorial systems. Various hospitals and healthcare centres were interested in it. The project idea came second ex aequo in the A. Scuri award for assistive technology.

The project is evolving and the first results and validation procedures have been encouraging. The problem of contextualising the wheelchair is currently being addressed. Assuming a rich and collaborative environment that can dialogue with the mobile phone, selection capacity becomes crucially important. It is unconceivable that the machine chooses for us if we want to call the lift or simply send a text to our partner, but the software must be able to find all the devices present in the environment and help disabled people decide what to do. Limited movement capacity has directed the choice towards a very simple mechanism - a few large buttons that even people with limited mobility can manage easily through a touchscreen. The software for discovering the devices present in the context surrounding the disabled person will scan the environment and will list the options. The graphic interface will create the buttons the user needs to choose. These changes have also made the iPhone the reference device for this project. The reason for choosing this particular device does not lie so much in its commercial success - it is due to the large available screen and the excellent resolution.

Thanks to previous work and the current projects, the operational unit of the Cremona campus has become partner of 4Wheels, the project between the Politecnico di Milano and IBM for the study of innovative solutions to improve university access to students with a disability. 4Wheels will continue testing the developed software in a wider context and with a higher number of users.