The present work, which describes the mechatronic design and development of a novel rehabilitation robotic exoskeleton hand, aims to present a solution for neuromusculoskeletal rehabilitation. It presents a full range of motion for all hand phalanges and was specifically designed to carry out position and force-position control for passive and active rehabilitation routines. System integration and preliminary clinical tests are also presented.
This letter presents a novel wearable haptic controller (WHC) system suitable for teleoperation of demolition machines and robotic platforms. With regard to existing operator controller unit composed by passive joysticks, the WHC has been designed to provide force feedback to the user, hence improving the user perfor- mance during the teleoperation of different robotic platforms and the interaction with the environment on the remote construction sites. The haptic feedback is provided through two compact parallel kinematic (CPK) interfaces that will be presented within the paper. The CPK implements a novel variant of the Delta kinematics which allows minimizing the radial encumbrance while preserving same operational workspace. In addition, we propose a new interaction modality that provides users the feeling of directly maneuvering the end-effector of the demolition machine. Finally, the architec- ture of the proposed system is presented and the results of some preliminary evaluation tests are discussed. The experiments have been performed in simulated environments and on a real machine
Today, computer vision algorithms are very important for different fields and applications, such as closed-circuit television security, health status monitoring, and recognizing a specific person or object and robotics. Regarding this topic, the present paper deals with a recent review of the literature on computer vision algorithms (recognition and tracking of faces, bodies, and objects) oriented towards socially assistive robot applications. The performance, frames per second (FPS) processing speed, and hardware implemented to run the algorithms are highlighted by comparing the available solutions. Moreover, this paper provides general information for researchers interested in knowing which vision algorithms are available, enabling them to select the one that is most suitable to include in their robotic system applications.
The lumbar puncture is an important procedure used in different specialties in medicine, such as neurology and anesthesiology. This procedure is considered complex, and the medical students believe they have not enough experience and confidence to perform it. That is the reason why some researchers are interested in proposing to create solutions to provide a better training of this procedure. This review aims to present a comparison between 10 virtual lumbar puncture simulators developed since 2000, where nine of them use a haptic device to represent a realistic procedure. In addition, the physical and virtual components are discussed, including the haptic device, the haptic algorithm, the virtual environment and the evaluations of the simulators. The contribution of this review is to recognize the limitations and strengths to identify some optimal requirements for the design, development, or selection of the software/hardware for the next generation of virtual lumbar puncture simulators.
Virtual environments (VEs) and haptic devices increase patients’ motivation. Furthermore, they observe their performance during rehabilitation. However, some of these technologies present disadvantages because they do not consider therapists’ needs and experience. This research presents the development and usability evaluation of an upper limb rehabilitation system based on a user-centered design approach for patients with moderate or mild stroke that can perform active rehabilitation. The system consists of a virtual environment with four virtual scenarios and a developed haptic device with vibrotactile feedback, and it can be visualized using a monitor or a Head-Mounted Display (HMD). Two evaluations were carried out; in the first one, five therapists evaluated the system’s usability using a monitor through the System Usability Scale, the user experience with the AttrakDiff questionnaire, and the functionality with customized items. As a result of these tests, improvements were made to the system. The second evaluation was carried out by ten volunteers who evaluated the usability, user experience, and performance with a monitor and HMD. A comparison of the therapist and volunteer scores has shown an increase in the usability evaluation (from 78 to >85), the hedonic score rose from 0.6 to 2.23, the pragmatic qualities from 1.25 to 2.20, and the attractiveness from 1.3 to 2.95. Additionally, the haptic device and the VE showed no relevant difference between their performance when using a monitor or HMD. The results show that the proposed system has the characteristics to be a helpful tool for therapists and upper limb rehabilitation.
This paper presents the design and development of a new low cost device that allows real-time control application of a robotic system using novel methodologies of component based design: processor in the loop tuning and low/high level control. The particular design of this electronic board allows to control up to three permanent magnet (PM) DC motors per board that can be attached to magnetic or optical encoders. A triple USB connection can be used to program, debug and control simultaneously the different features of the board. Moreover, the generation of a new Simulink library allows debug for process analysis using Matlab/Simulink external mode as well as traditional code analysis protocol within the developer toolchain. The controller board has been developed for academic activities, but has also proven to be valid and robust in prototype application without requiring knowledge of device internals. The paper describes the design and hardware system, the development toolchain and evaluation test is presented and discussed
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