Assistance during eating is essential for those with severe mobility issues or eating risks. However, dependence on traditional human caregivers is linked to malnutrition, weight loss, and low self-esteem. For those who require eating assistance, a semi-autonomous robotic platform can provide independence and a healthier lifestyle. We demonstrate an essential capability of this platform: safe, comfortable, and effective transfer of a bite-sized food item from a utensil directly to the inside of a person's mouth. Our system uses a force-reactive controller to safely accommodate the user's motions throughout the transfer, allowing full reactivity until bite detection then reducing reactivity in the direction of exit. Additionally, we introduce a novel dexterous wrist-like end effector capable of small, unimposing movements to reduce user discomfort. We conduct a user study with 11 participants covering 8 diverse food categories to evaluate our system end-to-end, and we find that users strongly prefer our method to a wide range of baselines. Appendices and videos are available at our website: https://tinyurl.com/btICRA.

翻译：自主进食辅助对于存在严重行动障碍或进食风险的人群至关重要。然而，依赖传统人类护理人员会导致营养不良、体重下降和自尊心降低等问题。对于需要进食辅助的人群而言，半自主机器人平台能够提供独立性和更健康的生活方式。我们展示了该平台的一项核心能力：将一口大小的食物从餐具安全、舒适且高效地直接递送至人口腔内部。我们的系统采用力反应控制器，在递送全程安全适应使用者动作：在咬取检测前保持完全响应性，随后在退出方向上降低响应性。此外，我们创新性地引入了一种灵巧的腕部末端执行器，可通过微小且不引人注意的运动减少使用者不适感。我们开展了涉及11名参与者、覆盖8种不同食物类别的用户研究，对系统进行端到端评估，结果表明使用者对我们的方法相比各类基线方案具有显著偏好。附录与演示视频可见于网站：https://tinyurl.com/btICRA