4,979 research outputs found

    Graduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

    Get PDF

    Physiological Responses During Hybrid BNCI Control of an Upper-Limb Exoskeleton

    Get PDF
    When combined with assistive robotic devices, such as wearable robotics, brain/neural-computer interfaces (BNCI) have the potential to restore the capabilities of handicapped people to carry out activities of daily living. To improve applicability of such systems, workload and stress should be reduced to a minimal level. Here, we investigated the user’s physiological reactions during the exhaustive use of the interfaces of a hybrid control interface. Eleven BNCI-naive healthy volunteers participated in the experiments. All participants sat in a comfortable chair in front of a desk and wore a whole-arm exoskeleton as well as wearable devices for monitoring physiological, electroencephalographic (EEG) and electrooculographic (EoG) signals. The experimental protocol consisted of three phases: (i) Set-up, calibration and BNCI training; (ii) Familiarization phase ; and (iii) Experimental phase during which each subject had to perform EEG and EoG tasks. After completing each task, the NASA-TLX questionnaire and self-assessment manikin (SAM) were completed by the user. We found significant differences (p-value < 0.05) in heart rate variability (HRV) and skin conductance level (SCL) between participants during the use of the two different biosignal modalities (EEG, EoG) of the BNCI. This indicates that EEG control is associated with a higher level of stress (associated with a decrease in HRV) and mental work load (associated with a higher level of SCL) when compared to EoG control. In addition, HRV and SCL modulations correlated with the subject’s workload perception and emotional responses assessed through NASA-TLX questionnaires and SAM

    Digital Innovations for Occupational Safety: Empowering Workers in Hazardous Environments

    Get PDF
    Background: The quest to increase safety awareness, make job sites safer, and promote decent work for all has led to the utilization of digital technologies in hazardous occupations. This study investigated the use of digital innovations for safety and health management in hazardous industries. The key challenges and recommendations associated with such use were also explored. Method: Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, a total of 48 studies were reviewed to provide a framework for future pathways for the effective implementation of these innovations. Findings: The results revealed four main categories of digital safety systems: wearable-based systems, augmented/virtual reality-based systems, artificial intelligence-based systems, and navigation-based systems. A wide range of technological, behavioral, and organizational challenges were identified in relation to the key themes. Conclusion: Outcomes from this review can inform policymakers and industrial decision-makers about the application of digital innovations for best safety practices in various hazardous work conditions

    A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Framework to Evaluate the Impact of Industry 5.0 Technologies: Case Study, Lessons Learned, Challenges and Future Directions

    Get PDF
    Smart technologies have demonstrated striking outcomes regarding the early diagnosis of diseases and the delivery of the necessary healthcare in the last decade. However, by emphasizing the core fundamentals of social justice and sustainability, together with digitalization and smart technologies that predicate raising productivity and flexibility, Industry 5.0 has proven to achieve more efficient results. Industry 5.0 technologies provide more intelligent ways for human employees and higher efficiency development while also improving safety and performance in many applications. In this research, the contribution is focused on the healthcare and how Industry 5.0 technologies demonstrate several advantages for the healthcare sector, starting with automated and precise disease prediction, moving on to aiding medical personnel in continual surveillance and monitoring and concluding with successful digital automation of smart equipment. The objective of this study is to apply a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach under a neutrosophic environment to evaluate the advantages of industry 5.0 technologies in the healthcare sector. Industry 5.0 primary value is to reach human-centric, sustainable, and resilient industries. While Industry 5.0 technologies sub-values regarding the healthcare sector are determined and distinguished according to the 3-main values mentioned previously based on literature. The methodologies applied in this study are: The Analytical Hierarchy approach (AHP) evaluates the main values and sub-values. Subsequently, the effectiveness of industry 5.0 technologies according to their values to the healthcare sector are ranked by Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The approach is constructed under uncertainty based on a neutrosophic environment to achieve accuracy in the evaluation process. The results show that the most influential technology in healthcare are AI and cloud computing, while nano-technology, drone technology, and robots are at the end of the ranking. While validating the suggested technique, outcome comparisons were carried out to demonstrate the benefits of the methodologies. A sensitivity study indicates that adjusting the weightings of the sub-values has no significant effect on the ranking of technologies

    Neuromorphic hardware for somatosensory neuroprostheses

    Get PDF
    In individuals with sensory-motor impairments, missing limb functions can be restored using neuroprosthetic devices that directly interface with the nervous system. However, restoring the natural tactile experience through electrical neural stimulation requires complex encoding strategies. Indeed, they are presently limited in effectively conveying or restoring tactile sensations by bandwidth constraints. Neuromorphic technology, which mimics the natural behavior of neurons and synapses, holds promise for replicating the encoding of natural touch, potentially informing neurostimulation design. In this perspective, we propose that incorporating neuromorphic technologies into neuroprostheses could be an effective approach for developing more natural human-machine interfaces, potentially leading to advancements in device performance, acceptability, and embeddability. We also highlight ongoing challenges and the required actions to facilitate the future integration of these advanced technologies

    Occupational health and safety issues in human-robot collaboration: State of the art and open challenges

    Get PDF
    Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) refers to the interaction of workers and robots in a shared workspace. Owing to the integration of the industrial automation strengths with the inimitable cognitive capabilities of humans, HRC is paramount to move towards advanced and sustainable production systems. Although the overall safety of collaborative robotics has increased over time, further research efforts are needed to allow humans to operate alongside robots, with awareness and trust. Numerous safety concerns are open, and either new or enhanced technical, procedural and organizational measures have to be investigated to design and implement inherently safe and ergonomic automation solutions, aligning the systems performance and the human safety. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis and a literature review are carried out in the present paper to provide a comprehensive overview of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) issues in HRC. As a result, the most researched topics and application areas, and the possible future lines of research are identified. Reviewed articles stress the central role played by humans during collaboration, underlining the need to integrate the human factor in the hazard analysis and risk assessment. Human-centered design and cognitive engineering principles also require further investigations to increase the worker acceptance and trust during collaboration. Deepened studies are compulsory in the healthcare sector, to investigate the social and ethical implications of HRC. Whatever the application context is, the implementation of more and more advanced technologies is fundamental to overcome the current HRC safety concerns, designing low-risk HRC systems while ensuring the system productivity

    Graduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

    Get PDF

    Evaluation of Data Processing and Artifact Removal Approaches Used for Physiological Signals Captured Using Wearable Sensing Devices during Construction Tasks

    Get PDF
    Wearable sensing devices (WSDs) have enormous promise for monitoring construction worker safety. They can track workers and send safety-related information in real time, allowing for more effective and preventative decision making. WSDs are particularly useful on construction sites since they can track workers’ health, safety, and activity levels, among other metrics that could help optimize their daily tasks. WSDs may also assist workers in recognizing health-related safety risks (such as physical fatigue) and taking appropriate action to mitigate them. The data produced by these WSDs, however, is highly noisy and contaminated with artifacts that could have been introduced by the surroundings, the experimental apparatus, or the subject’s physiological state. These artifacts are very strong and frequently found during field experiments. So, when there is a lot of artifacts, the signal quality drops. Recently, artifacts removal has been greatly enhanced by developments in signal processing, which has vastly enhanced the performance. Thus, the proposed review aimed to provide an in-depth analysis of the approaches currently used to analyze data and remove artifacts from physiological signals obtained via WSDs during construction-related tasks. First, this study provides an overview of the physiological signals that are likely to be recorded from construction workers to monitor their health and safety. Second, this review identifies the most prevalent artifacts that have the most detrimental effect on the utility of the signals. Third, a comprehensive review of existing artifact-removal approaches were presented. Fourth, each identified artifact detection and removal approach was analyzed for its strengths and weaknesses. Finally, in conclusion, this review provides a few suggestions for future research for improving the quality of captured physiological signals for monitoring the health and safety of construction workers using artifact removal approaches

    Orientation-Aware 3D SLAM in Alternating Magnetic Field from Powerlines

    Get PDF
    Identifying new sensing modalities for indoor localization is an interest of research. This paper studies powerline-induced alternating magnetic field (AMF) that fills the indoor space for the orientation-aware three-dimensional (3D) simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). While an existing study has adopted a uniaxial AMF sensor for SLAM in a plane surface, the design falls short of addressing the vector field nature of AMF and is therefore susceptible to sensor orientation variations. Moreover, although the higher spatial variability of AMF in comparison with indoor geomagnetism promotes location sensing resolution, extra SLAM algorithm designs are needed to achieve robustness to trajectory deviations from the constructed map. To address the above issues, we design a new triaxial AMF sensor and a new SLAM algorithm that constructs a 3D AMF intensity map regularized and augmented by a Gaussian process. The triaxial sensor’s orientation estimation is free of the error accumulation problem faced by inertial sensing. From extensive evaluation in eight indoor environments, our AMF-based 3D SLAM achieves sub-1m to 3m median localization errors in spaces of up to 500 m2 , sub-2° mean error in orientation sensing, and outperforms the SLAM systems based on Wi-Fi, geomagnetism, and uniaxial AMF by more than 30%
    • …
    corecore