JACO assistive robotic device : empowering people with disabilities through innovative algorithms

JACO is a commercially available robotic assistive device designed to help people with upper body disabilities gaining more autonomy in their daily life. The device consists of an arm and hand (gripper) mounted on a power wheelchair. This assistance is possible through basic functions such as tri-dimensional displacement of the gripper in space, finger opening and closing and orientation of the wrist. Although these basic functionalities allow the user to perform many tasks, advanced functionalities were required to further empower the users. This paper presents advanced functionalities that were implemented in JACO in order to increase the users’ safety and to enhance their autonomy by increasing the number of achievable tasks and diminishing the time and effort needed to achieve them