AccessTeleopKit: A Toolkit for Creating Accessible Web-Based Interfaces for Tele-Operating an Assistive Robot

Mobile manipulator robots, which can move around and physically interact with their environments, can empower people with motor limitations to independently carry out many activities of daily living. While many interfaces have been developed for tele-operating complex robots, most of them are not accessible to people with severe motor limitations. Further, most interfaces are rigid with limited configurations and are not readily available to download and use. To address these barriers, we developed AccessTeleopKit: an open-source toolkit for creating custom and accessible robot tele-operation interfaces based on cursor-and-click input for the Stretch 3 mobile-manipulator. With AccessTeleopKit users can add, remove, and rearrange components such as buttons and camera views, and select between a variety of control modes. We describe the participatory and iterative design process that led to the current implementation of AccessTeleopKit, involving three long-term deployments of the robot in the home of a quadriplegic user. We demonstrate how AccessTeleopKit allowed the user to create different interfaces for different tasks and the diversity of tasks it allowed the user to carry out. We also present two studies involving six additional users with severe motor limitations, demonstrating the power of AccessTeleopKit in creating custom interfaces for different user needs and preferences.