Robot grasping of unknown objects, description and validation of the function with quadriplegic people

This document, presents the AVISO system developed to provide severely disabled people (quadriplegic) with a function allowing them to grasp objects in their environment. The proposed solution relies on a dedicated robot arm with a gripper and a controller allowing automatic vision control of robot's motion. The grasping function proposed does not need marks on the objects of the environment and does not use any model of the objects. It is therefore easy to use, polyvalent and can be applied to a wide variety of objects. The AVISO system includes an intuitive man machine interface specially designed to take into account needs and interaction constraints of physically disabled people. The AVISO system was developed together with medical teams. It was tested and evaluated with disabled people of different aetiology and several valid persons under the control of occupational therapists of different hospitals and rehabilitation centres. The results are positive enough to enable to think to an industrial transfer of this technology at mid term. The paper terminates on a description of the future works, to enhance the system developed and improve our man machine interface in order to be furthermore usable by non-computer or robot specialists.