Point and Go: Intuitive Reference Frame Reallocation in Mode Switching for Assistive Robotics

2025-10-09

AI Summary

Wheelchair-mounted robotic arms suffer from unintuitive reference frames, decoupled translational/rotational control, and motion limitations during Cartesian-space mode switching, severely degrading operational efficiency for high-DOF tasks. To address this, we propose a “Point and Go” mode-switching paradigm: by remapping the user’s swipe gesture onto an intuitive, task-aligned reference frame, the system directly maps swipe direction to end-effector pointing, enabling natural planar “point-to-move” translational control while simultaneously coupling in-plane rotational alignment of the end-effector. This unifies translation and orientation control within a single, intuitive action space—eliminating the need for explicit multi-mode switching and minimizing operational interruptions. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that, compared to conventional Cartesian control and state-of-the-art learning-based approaches, our method reduces task completion time by 31%, decreases operation pauses by 41%, lowers mode-switching frequency by 33%, and yields significantly improved subjective user ratings.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Manipulation
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Model-Based Reasoning
• Humans and AI: Human-Aware Planning and Behavior Prediction

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: On-Device user modeling, personalization, and recommendation
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments

Abstract

Operating high degree of freedom robots can be difficult for users of wheelchair mounted robotic manipulators. Mode switching in Cartesian space has several drawbacks such as unintuitive control reference frames, separate translation and orientation control, and limited movement capabilities that hinder performance. We propose Point and Go mode switching, which reallocates the Cartesian mode switching reference frames into a more intuitive action space comprised of new translation and rotation modes. We use a novel sweeping motion to point the gripper, which defines the new translation axis along the robot base frame's horizontal plane. This creates an intuitive `point and go' translation mode that allows the user to easily perform complex, human-like movements without switching control modes. The system's rotation mode combines position control with a refined end-effector oriented frame that provides precise and consistent robot actions in various end-effector poses. We verified its effectiveness through initial experiments, followed by a three-task user study that compared our method to Cartesian mode switching and a state of the art learning method. Results show that Point and Go mode switching reduced completion times by 31%, pauses by 41%, and mode switches by 33%, while receiving significantly favorable responses in user surveys.

Problem

• Improving intuitive control for wheelchair-mounted robotic manipulators
• Overcoming limitations of Cartesian mode switching in robot control
• Enabling complex human-like movements without frequent mode switching

Innovation

• Reallocates control frames to intuitive action space
• Uses sweeping motion to define new translation axis
• Combines position control with refined end-effector frame