Knee surgery is a common procedure to treat cartilage defects, soft tissue lesions as cruciate ligaments (ACL/PCL), and osteoarthritis with total or unicondylar knee arthroplasty. After knee surgery, every patient undergoes a long period of rehabilitation (typically from 6 weeks to 6 months) consisting of long sessions of physiotherapy and medical training therapy carried out by qualified personnel. This procedure is long and expensive, and may cause work-related pathologies to physiotherapists. Fortunately, it is generally agreed that robotics may benefit to both patients and physiotherapists due to its ability to repeat tasks with accuracy and its potential to measure the progress of the rehabilitation. This paper aims at providing a critical review of the different proposed robotic solutions and the associated rehabilitation techniques for the knee in particular and for the lower limb in general, with the sake of highlighting the pros and cons and to identify possible promising directions of research.
This paper presents a novel experimental setup for teaching control engineering. This setup was developed during a project-based learning activity. The approach consists in training a master student in mechatronics and control through the design, manufacturing, and control of a device that will contribute over time to the education of students by laboratory sessions based on the device. The latter is an easyto-build, reproducible, and affordable experimental setup called the Centrifugal Ring Positioner (CRP). It aims at illustrating several concepts of closed-loop control (e.g. system identification, model validation, and controller design and validation) while getting acquainted with typical experimental issues like the handling of measurement noise and the real-time implementation of a control law. The CRP distinguishes itself from most pedagogical benchmarks by the wide use of 3D printing. It is an unstable and nonlinear system, consisting of a ring able to slide on a rod thanks to the balance between gravity and centrifugal force. The control of the system aims at stabilizing the ring at any fixed position on the rod. The complete methodology followed during the project-based learning approach to build and control a CRP is detailed, including derivation of a dynamic model based on classical mechanics theory, considerations on the mechanical design, selection of the components, step response and physics-based model identification, and PID controllers design based on computer-assisted methods such as root locus and Bode diagrams.INDEX TERMS 3D printing, centrifugal ring positioner, control engineering education, control systems, mechatronics, teaching lab.
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