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Development of a Wheelchair Virtual Driving Environment: Trials With Subjects With Traumatic Brain Injury

Spaeth, DM and Mahajan, H and Karmarkar, A and Collins, D and Cooper, RA and Boninger, ML (2008) Development of a Wheelchair Virtual Driving Environment: Trials With Subjects With Traumatic Brain Injury. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 89 (5). 996 - 1003. ISSN 0003-9993

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Abstract

Spaeth DM, Mahajan H, Karmarkar A, Collins D, Cooper RA, Boninger ML. Development of a wheelchair virtual driving environment: trials with subjects with traumatic brain injury. Objective: To develop and test a wheelchair virtual driving environment that can provide quantifiable measures of driving ability, offer driver training, and measure the performance of alternative controls. Design: A virtual driving environment was developed. The wheelchair icon is displayed in a 2-dimensional, bird's eye view and has realistic steering and inertial properties. Eight subjects were recruited to test the virtual driving environment. They were clinically evaluated for range of motion, muscle strength, and visual field function. Driving capacity was assessed by a brief trial with an actual wheelchair. During virtual trials, subjects were seated in a stationary wheelchair; a standard motion sensing joystick (MSJ) was compared with an experimental isometric joystick by using a repeated-measures design. Setting: Subjects made 2 laboratory visits. The first visit included clinical evaluation, tuning the isometric joystick, familiarization with virtual driving environment, and 4 driving tasks. The second visit included 40 trials with each joystick. Participants: Subjects (n=8; 7 men, 1 woman) with a mean age of 22.65±2y and traumatic brain injury, both ambulatory and nonambulatory, were recruited. Interventions: The MSJ used factory settings. A tuning program customized the isometric joystick transfer functions during visit 1. During the second visit, subjects performed 40 trials with each joystick. Main Outcome Measure: The root mean square error (RMSE) was defined as the average deviation from track centerline (in meters) and speed (in m/s). Results: Data analysis from the first 8 subjects showed no statistically significant differences between joysticks. RMSE averaged .12 to .21m; speed averaged .75m/s. For all tasks and joysticks, driving in reverse resulted in a higher RMSE and more virtual collisions than forward driving. RMSE rates were greater in left and right turns than straight and docking tasks. Conclusions: Testing with instrumented real wheelchairs can validate the virtual driving environment and assess whether virtual driving skills transfer to actual driving. © 2008 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine and the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.


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Details

Item Type: Article
Status: Published
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Spaeth, DM
Mahajan, H
Karmarkar, A
Collins, D
Cooper, RARCOOPER@pitt.eduRCOOPER
Boninger, MLboninger@pitt.eduBONINGER
Centers: Other Centers, Institutes, Offices, or Units > Human Engineering Research Laboratories
Date: 1 May 2008
Date Type: Publication
Journal or Publication Title: Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Volume: 89
Number: 5
Page Range: 996 - 1003
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1016/j.apmr.2007.11.030
Schools and Programs: School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences > Rehabilitation Science and Technology
Refereed: Yes
ISSN: 0003-9993
MeSH Headings: Analysis of Variance; Brain Injuries--rehabilitation; Equipment Failure Analysis; Feedback; Human Engineering--methods; Humans; Psychomotor Performance; Software; Task Performance and Analysis; User-Computer Interface; Wheelchairs
PubMed ID: 18452751
Date Deposited: 19 Oct 2012 19:50
Last Modified: 05 Feb 2019 03:55
URI: http://d-scholarship-dev.library.pitt.edu/id/eprint/15848

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