SBIR Phase I: Development of the WeeBot, an Infant-controlled Powered Ride-on Device for Children with Motor Impairments

这个第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是其对运动障碍婴儿辅助技术的创新和潜在的变革性贡献。在美国，每年有超过40，000名婴儿出生时患有脑瘫、脊柱裂和唐氏综合征等疾病，这些疾病通常会导致运动障碍。目前还没有为运动受限的婴儿提供独立运动的设备。由于儿童在开始爬行/行走时会对他们的物理和社会环境有大量的了解，因此拒绝或延迟独立运动的条件可能会影响认知，语言和社会发展。一种能让这些婴儿在与其他儿童相同的年龄移动和探索的设备可以减轻这些发育迟缓，并促进完全融入社会。 据估计，这些儿童一生的医疗费用为25万美元。提供早期独立运动可能会导致额外干预措施的潜在50，000美元终身减少，例如行为和职业治疗，特殊教育以及对医疗保健和教育援助的需求。 这相当于每年为卫生和教育系统节省2亿多美元。这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目解决了父母和治疗师对一种设备的需求，该设备将使运动障碍的婴儿能够在与正常发育的同龄人相同的年龄独立移动。目前还没有这样的设备。 拟议工作的智力价值是开发一种新颖的控制方法，用于6个月大的婴儿可以使用的电动设备：该设备沿婴儿倾斜的方向移动（如向玩具或父母伸手时），同时防止碰撞和福尔斯摔倒。 此前的研究表明，五个月大的婴儿就可以学会使用这种控制方法，有目的地将电动设备转向各个方向。该项目的研究目标是建立和验证第二代原型，可供父母和临床医生在研究环境之外使用。这些目标的成功完成将使该设备从研究试验台发展成为可行的原型，使未来的工作能够评估该设备对残疾婴儿认知，社会和沟通技能发展的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Phase I project is its innovative and potentially transformative contribution to assistive technologies for infants with motor impairment. In the United States, over 40,000 infants per year are born with conditions, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and Down syndrome, that often result in motor impairment. There is currently no device that provides independent movement to infants with motor limitations. Since children learn a great deal about their physical and social environments when they begin to crawl/walk, conditions that deny or delay independent movement can impact cognitive, language, and social development. A device that will let these infants move and explore at the same age as other children could mitigate these developmental delays and facilitate full integration into society. Lifetime cost of healthcare for these children has been estimated at $250,000. Providing early independent movement could result in a potential $50,000 lifetime reduction in additional interventions such, as behavioral and occupational therapy, special education, and the need for healthcare and educational aides. This amounts to over $200,000,000 in savings per year to the health and education systems.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the need, expressed by parents and therapists, for a device that will allow infants with motor impairment to move independently at the same age as their typically developing peers. Currently, no such device is available. The intellectual merit of the proposed work is the development of a novel control method for a powered device that can be used by infants as young as 6 months old: The device moves in the direction that the infant leans (as when reaching toward a toy or parent) while preventing collisions and falls. Previous research has shown that infants as young as five months old can learn to use this control method to purposefully steer a powered device in all directions. The research objectives of this project are to build and validate a second-generation prototype that can be used by parents and clinicians outside of a research setting. Successful completion of these objectives will advance the device from a research testbed to a viable, if limited, prototype, enabling future work to evaluate the impact of the device on the development of cognitive, social, and communication skills for infants with disabilities.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.