Access-H20: Sensor driven smart faucet to enable and empower independent drinking and grooming for individuals impacted by spinal cord injury

项目总结/摘要 全球每年脊髓损伤的新发病例从25万到50万不等，多达700万人 影响全球。目前，美国有近30万人患有SCI， 其中60%被认为是四肢瘫痪。脊髓损伤导致改变生活的后果， 发病率、死亡率、功能状态、就业和生活质量。除了身体和精神上的影响， 对个人来说，经济和社会影响是极端的，一个年轻人的平均终身护理费用为 25岁高位四肢瘫痪估计为460万美元。功能影响的范围通常取决于 在伤害和完整性的水平上。更高级别、更完整的损伤导致更广泛的虚弱 和瘫痪。对于颈部受伤的四肢瘫痪者来说，他们完成最基本的动作的能力 ADL严重受损，因为它们可能仅保留头部控制以及一些轻微的肩部控制， 肘关节屈曲和肌腱固定术抓握物体。人类最基本的需求之一是获得水， 广泛的ADL，如饮酒、美容或洗脸。然而，控制和交付形式因素的 水（开/关，温度，力和角度，和流/喷雾类型）有不同的要求， ADL。对于一个有着高水平SCI的人来说，传统的考试即使不是不可能，也是非常具有挑战性的， 有限的控制自由度来调节和控制需要水的给定任务。 Nasoni，LLC正在开发的100-H20智能水龙头将通过智能解决这些市场挑战。 传感器集成，自动流量调节和直观的控制算法，以提高水的可达性， SCI中的目标ADL。智能水龙头设计通过传统的向下喷口或 向上的喷泉输送，允许家庭中所有人使用单个水龙头。系统设计将整合 传感器网络（接近度、语音、相机和眼睛注视传感器），其可以基于剩余的 控制个人的自由度。智能算法映射将允许用户激活 水龙头使用，并通过各种流量控制功能，如开/关，温度，喷嘴（喷雾或 水流）、力和水流角度。例如，水龙头会自动调节到温暖， 喷雾，以及用于洗脸的更高的输送角度，而不是用于饮用的冷水、水流和较低的输送角度。 虽然完全商业化的H2O-H2O将包括上述所有功能，但第一阶段将展示其核心功能， 在SCI中更独立的饮酒和梳理的可行性。第一阶段将首先侧重于提升现有的 静态喷泉设计采用传感器和机器视觉网络，以及新型机电流量控制 自动调节供水量。下一步，智能算法将被设计成映射个人用户控制 为有针对性地提供饮用水和洗脸水提供投入。一旦增强的水龙头和算法 通过台架测试进行了集成和技术验证，原型将部署在试点可用性 脊髓损伤患者的研究。

Project Summary/Abstract New incidence of spinal cord injuries ranges from 250k to 500k globally each year, with up to 7 million people impacted worldwide. Currently almost 300k individuals are living in the United States with SCI and approximately 60% of those are considered quadriplegic. Spinal cord injury results in life-altering consequences in terms of morbidity, mortality, functional status, employment and quality of life. Beyond physical and mental impact on the individual, the economic and social impacts are extreme with average lifetime cost of care for a young adult at age 25 with high quadriplegia estimated to be $4.6 million. The range of functional impact most often depends on the level of injury and completeness. Higher level, more complete injuries cause more widespread weakness and paralysis. For quadriplegics with injuries at the cervical level, their ability to complete even the most basic ADLs are severely compromised, as they may only retain head control as well as some slight shoulder control, elbow flexion, and tenodesis grasp of objects. One of the most basic human needs is accessibility to water for wide ranging ADLs such as drinking, grooming, or face washing. However, control and delivery form factor of the water (On/Off, temperature, force & angle, and stream/spray type) have different requirements for unique ADLs. Traditional faucets can be very challenging, if not impossible, for an individual with high level SCI and limited control degrees of freedom to adjust and control for a given task requiring water. The Access-H20 smart faucet being developed by Nasoni, LLC will solve these market challenges by smart sensor integration, automated flow adjustment, & intuitive control algorithms to improve water accessibility for targeted ADLs in SCI. The smart faucet design delivers water through either a traditional downward spout or upward fountain delivery, allowing a single faucet to be used by all in a household. System design will integrate a sensor network (proximity, voice, camera, & eye gaze sensor) which can be calibrated based on remaining control degrees of freedom of the individual. Intelligent algorithm mapping will allow the user to activate the faucet for use and adjust it through various flow control features such as on/off, temperature, nozzle (spray or stream), force, and angle of water flow for a given task. For example, the faucet will automatically adjust to warm, spray, and higher delivery angle for face washing, as opposed to cold, stream, & lower delivery angle for drinking. While the fully commercialized Access-H2O will include all features above, this Phase I will demonstrate core feasibility of more independent drinking and grooming in SCI. Phase I will first focus on upgrading the existing static fountain design with a sensor and machine vision network, as well as novel electromechanical flow controls to automatically adjust water delivery. Next, smart algorithms will be designed to map individual user control inputs to targeted water delivery for drinking and face washing. Once the enhanced faucet and algorithms have been integrated and technical verified through bench testing, the prototype will be deployed in a pilot usability study with spinal cord injury subjects.