Imagine becoming an expert at activities you have never performed before by simply putting on a pair of glasses. Well, Battelle’s Activity Assistant™ does just that. Using glasses-integrated egocentric computer vision, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence, Activity Assistant understands how a user is interacting with the physical world around them and guides them through a series of steps to complete an activity, such as fixing a car engine or conducting a chemistry protocol. Activity Assistant knows if a user makes a mistake and provides corrective visual and auditory feedback as well as tracks performance. This augmented reality-based assistant provides a revolutionary modality to present relevant perceptual details alongside real-world information to direct user attention and improve user performance while limiting cognitive load.

Battelle’s Activity Assistant, defined further in patent US11037670B2, has been in development over the last 2 years, specifically for assessing and treating cognitive impairment due to acquired brain injury. The current system guides individuals through relevant daily living activities (e.g., preparing meals, sorting medications, counting money) and allows individuals with varying levels of cognitive impairment (e.g., mild to severe ABI) to be autonomously assessed on their abilities to perform routine activities. Recently, this technology has begun making a splash in the rehabilitation community, winning the best overall award in the 2020 ACRM LaunchPad competition.

This Battelle technology is expected to transform the way people interact with the world, broadening skillsets and allowing anyone to perform activities that would have previously required a trained expert. The days of hiring a car mechanic may soon be a thing of the past.