Towards Probabilistic Inference of Human Motor Intentions by Assistive Mobile Robots Controlled via a Brain-Computer Interface

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhou, Xiaoshan, Menassa, Carol M., Kamat, Vineet R.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhou, Xiaoshan
Menassa, Carol M.
Kamat, Vineet R.
author_facet Zhou, Xiaoshan
Menassa, Carol M.
Kamat, Vineet R.
contents Assistive mobile robots are a transformative technology that helps persons with disabilities regain the ability to move freely. Although autonomous wheelchairs significantly reduce user effort, they still require human input to allow users to maintain control and adapt to changing environments. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) stands out as a highly user-friendly option that does not require physical movement. Current BCI systems can understand whether users want to accelerate or decelerate, but they implement these changes in discrete speed steps rather than allowing for smooth, continuous velocity adjustments. This limitation prevents the systems from mimicking the natural, fluid speed changes seen in human self-paced motion. The authors aim to address this limitation by redesigning the perception-action cycle in a BCI controlled robotic system: improving how the robotic agent interprets the user's motion intentions (world state) and implementing these actions in a way that better reflects natural physical properties of motion, such as inertia and damping. The scope of this paper focuses on the perception aspect. We asked and answered a normative question "what computation should the robotic agent carry out to optimally perceive incomplete or noisy sensory observations?" Empirical EEG data were collected, and probabilistic representation that served as world state distributions were learned and evaluated in a Generative Adversarial Network framework. The ROS framework was established that connected with a Gazebo environment containing a digital twin of an indoor space and a virtual model of a robotic wheelchair. Signal processing and statistical analyses were implemented to identity the most discriminative features in the spatial-spectral-temporal dimensions, which are then used to construct the world model for the robotic agent to interpret user motion intentions as a Bayesian observer.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_05610
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Probabilistic Inference of Human Motor Intentions by Assistive Mobile Robots Controlled via a Brain-Computer Interface
Zhou, Xiaoshan
Menassa, Carol M.
Kamat, Vineet R.
Robotics
Emerging Technologies
Human-Computer Interaction
Machine Learning
Assistive mobile robots are a transformative technology that helps persons with disabilities regain the ability to move freely. Although autonomous wheelchairs significantly reduce user effort, they still require human input to allow users to maintain control and adapt to changing environments. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) stands out as a highly user-friendly option that does not require physical movement. Current BCI systems can understand whether users want to accelerate or decelerate, but they implement these changes in discrete speed steps rather than allowing for smooth, continuous velocity adjustments. This limitation prevents the systems from mimicking the natural, fluid speed changes seen in human self-paced motion. The authors aim to address this limitation by redesigning the perception-action cycle in a BCI controlled robotic system: improving how the robotic agent interprets the user's motion intentions (world state) and implementing these actions in a way that better reflects natural physical properties of motion, such as inertia and damping. The scope of this paper focuses on the perception aspect. We asked and answered a normative question "what computation should the robotic agent carry out to optimally perceive incomplete or noisy sensory observations?" Empirical EEG data were collected, and probabilistic representation that served as world state distributions were learned and evaluated in a Generative Adversarial Network framework. The ROS framework was established that connected with a Gazebo environment containing a digital twin of an indoor space and a virtual model of a robotic wheelchair. Signal processing and statistical analyses were implemented to identity the most discriminative features in the spatial-spectral-temporal dimensions, which are then used to construct the world model for the robotic agent to interpret user motion intentions as a Bayesian observer.
title Towards Probabilistic Inference of Human Motor Intentions by Assistive Mobile Robots Controlled via a Brain-Computer Interface
topic Robotics
Emerging Technologies
Human-Computer Interaction
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05610