SCC-IRG Track 1: Advancing Human-Centered Sociotechnical Research for Enabling Independent Mobility in People with Physical Disabilities

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This Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC) project will advance methods to improve end-to-end mobility for people with physical disabilities who rely on wheelchairs in their daily activities and encounter several barriers to their movement in the built environment. A typical mobility scenario involves navigation (i.e., finding accessible routes) and maneuvering tasks (i.e., parking wheelchair in confined spaces). These scenarios demand substantial effort and pose safety and anxiety risks for people with physical disabilities adversely affecting their quality of life. This project engages a broad group of stakeholders with converging disability perspectives (e.g., veterans with disabilities), patient care expertise, and experience in public service to create a user-centered autonomy that will enable people with physical disabilities to independently control their travel needs. The project scope will focus on individuals without any significant impairment in upper extremity function and/or sensory and cognitive domains, opening the door for future translational research that will extend research outcomes to other groups with diverse abilities.This integrative research project addresses critical knowledge gaps and leverages a participatory design process to: 1) Discover determinants for successful end-to-end mobility system performance from the perspective of people with physical disabilities; 2) Integrate new navigation and maneuvering algorithms to support end-to-end personal mobility of people with physical disabilities; 3) Investigate mechanisms to enhance a symbiotic relationship between users and the end-to-end mobility system; and 4) Explore psychological, social, and economic factors conductive to promoting widespread adoption in communities. A cohort of people with physical disabilities embedded within the research team will continually inform the project activities for its entire duration. In addition, two study groups recruited in coordination with the project stakeholders will participate in human factors studies conducted in both laboratory and naturalistic field environments to test and evaluate the implementation of the end-to-end mobility system in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area of southeast Michigan. The evaluation plan includes assessment of economic and social-psychological factors affecting adoption of the system in the community of people with physical disabilities. The project outcomes have no limitation in terms of population size or travel distances and can be applied in mobility scenarios that include transportation modes such as shuttle bus, rail, on-demand vehicles, or soon, shared driverless vehicles, as well as scale across a broad range of constructed facilities and urban communities. Cities aspiring to become smart, connected, and inclusive urban communities will benefit from the results of this research by informing the integration of mobility needs of people with physical disabilities into their master plans.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.