Humans and technologies at home: From friendly appliances to robotic interfaces

The introduction of new technologies at home, from sophisticated appliances to personal computers and mechatronic assistive devices, is a process which is rapidly exploding in modern society. Rather than focusing on the pure technical aspects, which, however, are quite intriguing for most researchers, this paper tries to provide a general approach to the problem of designing proper ''interfaces'' between humans and technologies at home. These interfaces should be, in the author's opinion, designed for ''all users': i.e. as friendly and simple to be operated as possible, whatever the real technical background and/or motor ability of the end-user could be. The paper describes the philosophical approach and the consequent technical solution to these problems proposed by the authors in the framework of a European joint research project: the TIDE-MOVAID project (MObility and actiVity Assistance systems for the Disabled). The MOVAID approach is based on the assumption that ALL USERS ARE DISABLED WHEN FACING NEW TECHNOLOGIES. MOVAID aims to provide solutions for interfacing all users, including the moderaterly and severely disabled, with their home environment The general needs for simplicity and functionality of able-bodied and moderately disabled users are catered for by novel friendly interfaces for standard appliances while the need of independence and autonomy of operation of the severely disabled users are catered for by a mobile manipulator robotic interface (the MOVAID unit). In the paper, the MOVAID approach and the prototypes of a novel friendly interface for a microwave oven and of the MOVAID mobile unit are presented ir? detail. Furthermore, the results of validation tests with moderately disabled users of the appliance interface are reported and discussed.