Design and Development of a Twisted String Exoskeleton Robot for the Upper Limb

High-intensity and task-specific upper-limb treatment of active, highly repetitive movements are the effective approaches for patients with motor disorders. However, with the severe shortage of medical service in the United States and the fact that post-stroke survivors can continue to incur significant financial costs, patients often choose not to return to the hospital or clinic for complete recovery. Therefore, robot-assisted therapy can be considered as an alternative rehabilitation approach because the similar or better results as the patients who receive intensive conventional therapy offered by professional physicians.;The primary objective of this study was to design and fabricate an effective mobile assistive robotic system that can provide stroke patients shoulder and elbow assistance. To reduce the size of actuators and to minimize the weight that needs to be carried by users, two sets of dual twisted-string actuators, each with 7 strands (1 neutral and 6 effective) were used to extend/contract the adopted strings to drive the rotational movements of shoulder and elbow joints through a Bowden cable mechanism. Furthermore, movements of non-disabled people were captured as templates of training trajectories to provide effective rehabilitation.;The specific aims of this study included the development of a two-degree-of-freedom prototype for the elbow and shoulder joints, an adaptive robust control algorithm with cross-coupling dynamics that can compensate for both nonlinear factors of the system and asynchronization between individual actuators as well as an approach for extracting the reference trajectories for the assistive robotic from non-disabled people based on Microsoft Kinect sensor and Dynamic time warping algorithm. Finally, the data acquisition and control system of the robot was implemented by Intel Galileo and XILINX FPGA embedded system

Controller Synthesis of Multi-Axial Robotic System Used for Wearable Devices

Wearable devices are commonly used in different fields to help improving performance of movements for different groups of users. The long-term goal of this study is to develop a low-cost assistive robotic device that allows patients to perform rehabilitation activities independently and reproduces natural movement to help stroke patients and elderly adults in their daily activities while moving their arms. In the past few decades, various types of wearable robotic devices have been developed to assist different physical movements. Among different types of actuators, the twisted-string actuation system is one of those that has advantages of light-weight, low cost, and great portability. In this study, a dual twisted-string actuator is used to drive the joints of the prototype assistive robotic device. To compensate the asynchronous movement caused by nonlinear factors, a hybrid controller that combines fuzzy logic rules and linear PID control algorithm was adopted to compensate for both tracking and synchronization of the two actuators.;In order to validate the performance of proposed controllers, the robotic device was driven by an xPC Target machine with additional embedded controllers for different data acquisition tasks. The controllers were fine tuned to eliminate the inaccuracy of tracking and synchronization caused by disturbance and asynchronous movements of both actuators. As a result, the synthesized controller can provide a high precision when tracking simple actual human movements

A Comparison of ICA versus genetic algorithm optimized ICA for use in non-invasive muscle tissue EMG

Includes bibliographical references.The patent developed by Dr. L. John [1] allows for the the detection of deep muscle activation through the combination of specially positioned monopolar surface Electromyography (sEMG) electrodes and a Blind Source Separation algorithm. This concept was then proved by Morowasi and John [2] in a 12 electrode prototype system around the bicep. This proof of concept showed that it was possible to extract the deep tissue activity of the brachialis muscle in the upper arm, however, the effect of surface electrode positioning and effectual number of electrodes on signal quality is still unclear. The hope of this research is to extend this work. In this research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is implemented on top of the Fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA) algorithm to reduce the number of electrodes needed to isolate the activity from all muscles in the upper arm, including deep tissue. The GA selects electrodes based on the amount of significant information they contribute to the ICA solution and by doing so, a reduced electrode set is generated and alternative electrode positions are identified. This allows a near optimal electrode configuration to be produced for each user. The benefits of this approach are: 1.The generalized electrode array and this algorithm can select the near optimal electrode arrangement with very minimal understanding of the underlying anatomy. 2. It can correct for small anatomical differences between test subjects and act as a calibration phase for individuals. As with any design there are also disadvantages, such as each user needs to have the electrode placement specifically customised for him or her and this process needs to be conducted using a higher number of electrodes to begin with

E-Learning

E-learning enables students to pace their studies according to their needs, making learning accessible to (1) people who do not have enough free time for studying - they can program their lessons according to their available schedule; (2) those far from a school (geographical issues), or the ones unable to attend classes due to some physical or medical restriction. Therefore, cultural, geographical and physical obstructions can be removed, making it possible for students to select their path and time for the learning course. Students are then allowed to choose the main objectives they are suitable to fulfill. This book regards E-learning challenges, opening a way to understand and discuss questions related to long-distance and lifelong learning, E-learning for people with special needs and, lastly, presenting case study about the relationship between the quality of interaction and the quality of learning achieved in experiences of E-learning formation

Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society

This book features the manuscripts accepted for the Special Issue “Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society—Sensing Systems and Pervasive Intelligence” of the MDPI journal Sensors. Most of the papers come from a selection of the best papers of the 2019 edition of the “Applications in Electronics Pervading Industry, Environment and Society” (APPLEPIES) Conference, which was held in November 2019. All these papers have been significantly enhanced with novel experimental results. The papers give an overview of the trends in research and development activities concerning the pervasive application of electronics in industry, the environment, and society. The focus of these papers is on cyber physical systems (CPS), with research proposals for new sensor acquisition and ADC (analog to digital converter) methods, high-speed communication systems, cybersecurity, big data management, and data processing including emerging machine learning techniques. Physical implementation aspects are discussed as well as the trade-off found between functional performance and hardware/system costs

Sensing and Signal Processing in Smart Healthcare

In the last decade, we have witnessed the rapid development of electronic technologies that are transforming our daily lives. Such technologies are often integrated with various sensors that facilitate the collection of human motion and physiological data and are equipped with wireless communication modules such as Bluetooth, radio frequency identification, and near-field communication. In smart healthcare applications, designing ergonomic and intuitive human–computer interfaces is crucial because a system that is not easy to use will create a huge obstacle to adoption and may significantly reduce the efficacy of the solution. Signal and data processing is another important consideration in smart healthcare applications because it must ensure high accuracy with a high level of confidence in order for the applications to be useful for clinicians in making diagnosis and treatment decisions. This Special Issue is a collection of 10 articles selected from a total of 26 contributions. These contributions span the areas of signal processing and smart healthcare systems mostly contributed by authors from Europe, including Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, and Netherlands. Authors from China, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Ecuador are also included

Towards a Common Software/Hardware Methodology for Future Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

The European research project DESERVE (DEvelopment platform for Safe and Efficient dRiVE, 2012-2015) had the aim of designing and developing a platform tool to cope with the continuously increasing complexity and the simultaneous need to reduce cost for future embedded Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). For this purpose, the DESERVE platform profits from cross-domain software reuse, standardization of automotive software component interfaces, and easy but safety-compliant integration of heterogeneous modules. This enables the development of a new generation of ADAS applications, which challengingly combine different functions, sensors, actuators, hardware platforms, and Human Machine Interfaces (HMI). This book presents the different results of the DESERVE project concerning the ADAS development platform, test case functions, and validation and evaluation of different approaches. The reader is invited to substantiate the content of this book with the deliverables published during the DESERVE project. Technical topics discussed in this book include:Modern ADAS development platforms;Design space exploration;Driving modelling;Video-based and Radar-based ADAS functions;HMI for ADAS;Vehicle-hardware-in-the-loop validation system

Hybrid wheelchair controller for handicapped and quadriplegic patients

In this dissertation, a hybrid wheelchair controller for handicapped and quadriplegic patient is proposed. The system has two sub-controllers which are the voice controller and the head tilt controller. The system aims to help quadriplegic, handicapped, elderly and paralyzed patients to control a robotic wheelchair using voice commands and head movements instead of a traditional joystick controller. The multi-input design makes the system more flexible to adapt to the available body signals. The low-cost design is taken into consideration as it allows more patients to use this system

Towards a Common Software/Hardware Methodology for Future Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

The European research project DESERVE (DEvelopment platform for Safe and Efficient dRiVE, 2012-2015) had the aim of designing and developing a platform tool to cope with the continuously increasing complexity and the simultaneous need to reduce cost for future embedded Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). For this purpose, the DESERVE platform profits from cross-domain software reuse, standardization of automotive software component interfaces, and easy but safety-compliant integration of heterogeneous modules. This enables the development of a new generation of ADAS applications, which challengingly combine different functions, sensors, actuators, hardware platforms, and Human Machine Interfaces (HMI). This book presents the different results of the DESERVE project concerning the ADAS development platform, test case functions, and validation and evaluation of different approaches. The reader is invited to substantiate the content of this book with the deliverables published during the DESERVE project. Technical topics discussed in this book include:Modern ADAS development platforms;Design space exploration;Driving modelling;Video-based and Radar-based ADAS functions;HMI for ADAS;Vehicle-hardware-in-the-loop validation system