Augmented Body Communicator: Enhancing daily body expression for people with upper limb limitations through LLM and a robotic arm

TL;DR

This paper presents an Augmented Body Communicator system combining robotic arms and large language models to enhance social body language expression for individuals with upper limb limitations, supported by user testing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system integrating robotic arms and LLMs with kinetic memory for collaborative action design, improving expressive capabilities of disabled users.

Findings

System improves users' ability to express themselves.

User testing with six participants shows positive results.

Provides design recommendations for assistive robotic arms.

Abstract

Individuals with upper limb movement limitations face challenges in interacting with others. Although robotic arms are currently used primarily for functional tasks, there is considerable potential to explore ways to enhance users' body language capabilities during social interactions. This paper introduces an Augmented Body Communicator system that integrates robotic arms and a large language model. Through the incorporation of kinetic memory, disabled users and their supporters can collaboratively design actions for the robot arm. The LLM system then provides suggestions on the most suitable action based on contextual cues during interactions. The system underwent thorough user testing with six participants who have conditions affecting upper limb mobility. Results indicate that the system improves users' ability to express themselves. Based on our findings, we offer recommendations for developing robotic arms that support disabled individuals with body language capabilities and functional tasks.