The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to identify the customer needs and develop a minimum viable robotic assistive device that will enable disabled individuals to care for themselves, improve their mobility, independence and quality of life while reducing the burden on their families and communities. There is opportunity for launching a homecare equipment market through the adaptive sports clubs and the clinical facilities. The elderly and disabled assistive devices global market was valued at $14 billion in 2015 and is expected to surpass $26 billion by 2024. The outcome of the project will further help researchers, educators, and clinicians to discover new approaches/technology to satisfy unmet needs of customers. This I-Corps project will provide hands on training and experience for an engineering undergraduate student (co-entrepreneurial lead) and graduate student (entrepreneurial lead) on the customer discovery process. The PI will also gain exposure to the customer discovery process, and will incorporate the learnings from this course in ongoing and future projects within his research lab and engineering senior design classes. The project activities are intimately linked to educational activities that will teach students at various levels about the customer discovery process, entrepreneurship, hypothesis testing, etc.
This I-Corps project will advance understanding of the problems and needs of disabled individuals with upper/lower extremity impairments from different conditions. The intellectual merit of the project lies in the development of a sustainable business model canvas around the proposed technology and in the novel design and development of the proposed robotic assistive arm (R2A). The R2A that we envision is a 7 degrees of freedom anthropomorphic robotic hand that can be mounted on a wheelchair or any mobile platform. It can be controlled either by hand/foot/mouth control depending on the patient?s needs. This will allow the patient, regardless of the disability, to control the robot. The fundamental research conducted so far includes development of an upper-extremity robotic exoskeleton to provide arm movement therapy. This I-Corps project will find the gaps between the customer unmet needs and the approaches/technology currently being used to satisfy their needs. The project activities will unite different customers? problems, needs, and existing solutions; and form a symbiotic relationship to overcome the critical barrier to advancing the field of assistive robotics. Overall, the proposed project will significantly advance the knowledge of how robotic devices can meaningfully and effectively be used in caregiving and rehabilitation.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
