# Active Robot-Assisted Feeding with a General-Purpose Mobile Manipulator: Design, Evaluation, and Lessons Learned

## TL;DR

This paper presents a novel autonomous meal-assistance system using a general-purpose mobile robot, evaluated with users with motor impairments, demonstrating safety, usability, and effectiveness in aiding independent eating.

## Contribution

The work introduces a versatile active feeding system with autonomous capabilities and safety features, specifically designed for users with severe motor impairments, and shares valuable lessons learned.

## Key findings

- Participants successfully used the system for eating various foods.
- High success rates in autonomous behaviors reported by users.
- Users found the system comfortable, safe, and easy to operate.

## Abstract

Eating is an essential activity of daily living (ADL) for staying healthy and living at home independently. Although numerous assistive devices have been introduced, many people with disabilities are still restricted from independent eating due to the devices' physical or perceptual limitations. In this work, we present a new meal-assistance system and evaluations of this system with people with motor impairments. We also discuss learned lessons and design insights based on the evaluations. The meal-assistance system uses a general-purpose mobile manipulator, a Willow Garage PR2, which has the potential to serve as a versatile form of assistive technology. Our active feeding framework enables the robot to autonomously deliver food to the user's mouth, reducing the need for head movement by the user. The user interface, visually-guided behaviors, and safety tools allow people with severe motor impairments to successfully use the system. We evaluated our system with a total of 10 able-bodied participants and 9 participants with motor impairments. Both groups of participants successfully ate various foods using the system and reported high rates of success for the system's autonomous behaviors. In general, participants who operated the system reported that it was comfortable, safe, and easy-to-use.