Cyber-Physical Systems for Accessibility and Ability Augmentation: Bridging Diverse Communities

Abstract

The powerful convergence of wearables, robotics, extended reality, and smart environments is expanding the design space for cyber-physical systems (CPS) that support and augment human abilities in daily life. By sensing real-world contexts, modeling user needs, and providing situated assistance, these systems can improve accessibility for people with disabilities while enhancing broader human abilities such as perception, memory, learning, and mobility. However, realizing this potential requires addressing key challenges in context sensing, user modeling, adaptive interaction, privacy, and evaluation to ensure that CPS are reliable and effective in real-world contexts. This workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners across HCI, AI, wearables, robotics, XR, smart environments, accessibility, and ability augmentation to examine shared strategies and challenges for designing accessibility- and ability-centered CPS. Through panel discussions, interactive demos, and mixed-group design activities, participants will identify recurring design principles, technical challenges, and future directions for CPS that support and augment human abilities in real-world settings. For details, please visit: https://cps4all.github.io.