Action recognition using instrumented objects for stroke rehabilitation

Assisting patients to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) is a challenging task for both human and machine. Hence, developing a computer-based rehabilitation system to re-train patients to carry out daily activities is an essential step towards facilitating rehabilitation of stroke patients with apraxia and action disorganization syndrome (AADS). This thesis presents a real-time Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based human activity recognizer, and proposes a technique to reduce the time delay occurred during the decoding stage. Results are reported for complete tea-making trials. In this study, the input features are recorded using sensors attached to the objects involved in the tea making task, plus hand coordinate data captured using Kinect sensor. A coaster of sensors, comprising an accelerometer and three force-sensitive resistors, are packaged in a unit which can be easily attached to the base of an object. A parallel asynchronous set of detectors, each responsible for the detection of one sub-goal in the tea-making task, are used to address challenges arising from overlaps between human actions. In this work HMMs are used to exploit temporal dependencies between actions and emission distributions are modelled by two generative and discriminative modelling techniques namely Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) and Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). Our experimental results show that HMM-DNN based systems outperform the GMM-HMM based systems by 18%. The proposed activity recognition system with the modified HMM topology provides a practical solution to the action recognition problem and reduces the time delay by 64% with no loss in accuracy

Design and Development of Biofeedback Stick Technology (BfT) to Improve the Quality of Life of Walking Stick Users

Biomedical engineering has seen a rapid growth in recent times, where the aim to facilitate and equip humans with the latest technology has become widespread globally. From high-tech equipment ranging from CT scanners, MRI equipment, and laser treatments, to the design, creation, and implementation of artificial body parts, the field of biomedical engineering has significantly contributed to mankind. Biomedical engineering has facilitated many of the latest developments surrounding human mobility, with advancement in mobility aids improving human movement for people with compromised mobility either caused by an injury or health condition. A review of the literature indicated that mobility aids, especially walking sticks, and appropriate training for their use, are generally prescribed by allied health professionals (AHP) to walking stick users for rehabilitation and activities of daily living (ADL). However, feedback from AHP is limited to the clinical environment, leaving walking stick users vulnerable to falls and injuries due to incorrect usage. Hence, to mitigate the risk of falls and injuries, and to facilitate a routine appraisal of individual patient’s usage, a simple, portable, robust, and reliable tool was developed which provides the walking stick users with real-time feedback upon incorrect usage during their activities of daily living (ADL). This thesis aimed to design and develop a smart walking stick technology: Biofeedback stick technology (BfT). The design incorporates the approach of patient and public involvement (PPI) in the development of BfT to ensure that BfT was developed as per the requirements of walking stick users and AHP recommendations. The newly developed system was tested quantitatively for; validity, reliability, and reproducibility against gold standard equipment such as the 3D motion capture system, force plates, optical measurement system for orientation, weight bearing, and step count. The system was also tested qualitatively for its usability by conducting semi-informal interviews with AHPs and walking stick users. The results of these studies showed that the newly developed system has good accuracy, reported above 95% with a maximum inaccuracy of 1°. The data reported indicates good reproducibility. The angles, weight, and steps recorded by the system during experiments are within the values published in the literature. From these studies, it was concluded that, BfT has the potential to improve the lives of walking stick users and that, with few additional improvements, appropriate approval from relevant regulatory bodies, and robust clinical testing, the technology has a huge potential to carve its way to a commercial market

A shoe-integrated sensor system for wireless gait analysis and real-time therapeutic feedback

Thesis (Sc. D.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-314).Clinical gait analysis currently involves either an expensive analysis in a motion laboratory, using highly accurate, if cumbersome, kinematic systems, or a qualitative analysis with a physician or physical therapist making visual observations. There is a need for a low cost device that falls in between these two methods, and can provide quantitative and repeatable results. In addition, continuous monitoring of gait would be useful for real-time physical rehabilitation. To free patients from the confines of a motion laboratory, this thesis has resulted in a wireless wearable system capable of measuring many parameters relevant to gait analysis. The extensive sensor suite includes three orthogonal accelerometers, and three orthogonal gyroscopes, four force sensors, two bi-directional bend sensors, two dynamic pressure sensors, as well as electric field height sensors. The "GaitShoe" was built to be worn on any shoes, without interfering with gait, and was designed to collect data unobtrusively, in any environment, and over long periods of time. Subject testing of the GaitShoe was carried out on ten healthy subjects with normal gait and five subjects with Parkinson's disease. The calibrated sensor outputs were analyzed, and compared to results obtained simultaneously from The Massachusetts General Hospital Biomotion Lab; the GaitShoe proved highly capable of detecting heel strike and toe off, as well as estimating orientation and position of the subject. A wide variety of features were developed from the calibrated sensor outputs, for use with standard pattern recognition techniques to classify the gait of the subject. The results of the classification demonstrated the ability of the GaitShoe to identify the subjects with(cont.) Parkinson's disease, as well as individual subjects. Real-time feedback methods were developed to investigate the feasibility of using the continuous monitoring of gait for physical therapy and rehabilitation.by Stacy J. Morris.Sc.D

Recent Advances in Motion Analysis

The advances in the technology and methodology for human movement capture and analysis over the last decade have been remarkable. Besides acknowledged approaches for kinematic, dynamic, and electromyographic (EMG) analysis carried out in the laboratory, more recently developed devices, such as wearables, inertial measurement units, ambient sensors, and cameras or depth sensors, have been adopted on a wide scale. Furthermore, computational intelligence (CI) methods, such as artificial neural networks, have recently emerged as promising tools for the development and application of intelligent systems in motion analysis. Thus, the synergy of classic instrumentation and novel smart devices and techniques has created unique capabilities in the continuous monitoring of motor behaviors in different fields, such as clinics, sports, and ergonomics. However, real-time sensing, signal processing, human activity recognition, and characterization and interpretation of motion metrics and behaviors from sensor data still representing a challenging problem not only in laboratories but also at home and in the community. This book addresses open research issues related to the improvement of classic approaches and the development of novel technologies and techniques in the domain of motion analysis in all the various fields of application

Studies in fiber-optic couplers and resonators

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1993.Title as it appears in the Feb. 1993 MIT Graduate List: Studies in polished couplers and resonators. Vita.Includes bibliographical references.Robert Paul Dahlgren.M.S

Intelligent Sensors for Human Motion Analysis

The book, "Intelligent Sensors for Human Motion Analysis," contains 17 articles published in the Special Issue of the Sensors journal. These articles deal with many aspects related to the analysis of human movement. New techniques and methods for pose estimation, gait recognition, and fall detection have been proposed and verified. Some of them will trigger further research, and some may become the backbone of commercial systems

Proceedings of the 9th international conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies (ICDVRAT 2012)

The proceedings of the conferenc

Evaluation of the ingestive behaviour of the dairy cow under two systems of rotation with slope

The ingestive behaviour of grazing animals is modulated by the vegetation characteristics, topography and the type of stocking method. This research was carried out in 2019, at the Rumipamba CADER-UCE. It aimed to evaluate the impact of two contrasting stocking methods of dairy cows grazing a pasture with an average of slope >8.5%. Four dairy cows were set to graze a 0.4 ha paddock for 5 days for continuous stocking methods, while for the electric fence methods the dairy cows were restricted to 0.2 ha and the fence was moved uphill every 3 hours, repeating this process four times a day. Cow were equipped with activity sensors for 12 h per day. The whole procedure was repeated 2 times after realizing an equalization cuts and both paddocks, a rest time of 30 days and a random reassignment of paddocks to one of the treatments. The cows showed a difference in terms of the percentage of grazing P=0.0072, being higher with the electric fence (55% of the measurement time). From rising-plate-meter estimates of available biomass along the grazing periods, we calculated despite similar forage allowances (electric fence = 48.06 kg DM/cow/d and continuous = 48.21 DM/cow/d) a higher forage intake was obtained in the electric fence treatment (17.5 kg DM/cow/d) compared the continuous stocking (15.7 kg DM/cow/d) (P=0.006). In terms of milk production animals grazing under the differences electrical fence stocking method tended (P=0.0985) to produce more milk (17.39 kg/d) than those grazing in the continuous system (15.16 kg/d) due to the influence of the slope (P=0.05), while for milk quality the protein content was higher for the electric fence (33.7 g/l) than the continuous method (30.5 g/l) (P=0.039). None of the other milk properties differed between methods (P>0.05)