AsTeRICS - Toward a Rapid Integration Construction Set for Assistive Technologies
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Buchtitel:
Everyday Technology for Independence and Care
Original Kurzfassung:
Abstract. More than 2.6 million people in Europe have problems with their upper limbs and therefore many of them depend on Assistive Technologies (AT). Nowadays, a considerable number of AT devices based on information and communication technologies have become available. These devices often ask for adaptation of software and/or hardware to fit the user?s abilities. All too often, assistive tools that have been optimised for a particular application cannot be used in other situations. The EC-funded project AsTeRICS aims to provide a flexible and affordable construction set for building assistive functionalities which can be highly adapted to individual user?s needs. AsTeRICS combines a scalable OSGi architecture of plugins for classical-, BNCI- and computer vision sensors with actuators to interact with the environment. The core element of the AsTeRICS system is the AsTeRICS Personal Platform, an embedded computing system, which processes data from input modules and controls output to actuator modules to put assistive functionalities in place. Sensors and actuators are connected to this embedded computing platform by wire or wirelessly. The system is configured via a graphical software suite. Primary and secondary users can modify key parameters to adapt the AT-setup to changes in the user?s abilities. To ensure a highly usable system primary and secondary users are involved throughout the whole project (user centred design methodology).
This paper discusses the first results of the user involvement and the resulting overall architecture of AsTeRICS. Furthermore, the first system prototype is presented and an outlook on future work is given.