Solving a Maze: Experimental Exploration on Wayfinding Behavior for Cognitively Enhanced Collaborative Control

Abstract

The work described in this paper stems from the Cognitive Wheelchair Project - an effort to build a cognitively enhanced collaborative control architecture for an intelligent wheelchair. A number of challenges arises when developing such a system including ensuring indiscernibility of assistance provided by the system i.e., user unable to realize so easily that he is getting help. In this paper, our focus is primarily on design of such a reactive navigator for collaborative control of an intelligent wheelchair. Under conditions attuned to replicate the scenarios available to the wheelchair, we conducted a series of maze solving experiments. A set of design elements were extracted from the wayfinding experiment leading to the finite state machine (FSM) characterizing the reactive navigator. The FSM arrived at through such an exercise is expected to emulate the cognitive processes of human wayfinding under environment conditions as perceivable to an intelligent wheelchair and ensure indiscernibility of assistance.