Voice control of our robotic hand orthosis – enabled by Picovoice
As part of our research on assistive technology, we have been exploring various options to trigger the motion of our robotic hand orthosis. These different "intention detection strategies" are one of the key tailoring options to enable the adaptation of the device to the individual user’s needs, wishes, and capabilities.
Voice control is one of such strategies we have been using with promising results in our recent studies in children and adults with sensorimotor hand impairments, since it allows to trigger the robotic hand orthosis during bimanual tasks. The voice features in our project are enabled by Porcupine Wake Word. The service provided by external page Picovoice allowed us to train customized wake words or short phrases online and use the resulting models to reliably detect the wake words when used offline. See the voice control in use for the paediatric version of our robotic hand orthosis (PEXO) in the video below (from 1:39). Go exo!