We present a system whereby the human voice may specify continuous control signals to manipulate a simulated 2D robotic arm and a real 3D robotic arm. Our goal is to move towards making accessible the manipulation of everyday objects to individuals with motor impairments. Using our system, we performed several studies using control style variants for both the 2D and 3D arms. Results show that it is indeed possible for a user to learn to effectively manipulate real-world objects with a robotic arm using only non-verbal voice as a control mechanism. Our results provide strong evidence that the further development of non-verbal voice controlled robotics and prosthetic limbs will be successful.

We explore the use of the Vocal Joystick (VJ) for robotic limb control using a small-scale robotic arm. The purpose of this research is to allow individuals with mobile disabilities to obtain greater independence by continuously controlling a robotic arm with their voice. The VJ-Voicebot relies only on continuous and discrete non-verbal vocal sounds to interact with objects in its environment. The demonstration will allow users to experience real-time control of a 5 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) robotic arm using sounds produced from their own vocal system.