324 research outputs found
Low-cost wearable multichannel surface EMG acquisition for prosthetic hand control
Prosthetic hand control based on the acquisition
and processing of surface electromyography signals (sEMG) is a
well-established method that makes use of the electric potentials
evoked by the physiological contraction processes of one or more
muscles. Furthermore intelligent mobile medical devices are on
the brink of introducing safe and highly sophisticated systems to
help a broad patient community to regain a considerable amount
of life quality. The major challenges which are inherent in such
integrated system’s design are mainly to be found in obtaining a
compact system with a long mobile autonomy, capable of
delivering the required signal requirements for EMG based
prosthetic control with up to 32 simultaneous acquisition
channels and – with an eye on a possible future exploitation as a
medical device – a proper perspective on a low priced system.
Therefore, according to these requirements we present a wireless,
mobile platform for acquisition and communication of sEMG
signals embedded into a complete mobile control system
structure. This environment further includes a portable device
such as a laptop providing the necessary computational power
for the control and a commercially available robotic handprosthesis.
Means of communication among those devices are
based on the Bluetooth standard. We show, that the developed
low cost mobile device can be used for proper prosthesis control
and that the device can rely on a continuous operation for the
usual daily life usage of a patient
Application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Prosthetic and Orthotic Rehabilitation
Technological integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning in the Prosthetic and Orthotic industry and in the field of assistive technology has become boon for the Persons with Disabilities. The concept of neural network has been used by the leading manufacturers of rehabilitation aids for simulating various anatomical and biomechanical functions of the lost parts of the human body. The involvement of human interaction with various agents’ i.e. electronic circuitry, software, robotics, etc. has made a revolutionary impact in the rehabilitation field to develop devices like Bionic leg, mind or thought control prosthesis and exoskeletons. Application of Artificial Intelligence and robotics technology has a huge impact in achieving independent mobility and enhances the quality of life in Persons with Disabilities (PwDs)
Control of multifunctional prosthetic hands by processing the electromyographic signal
The human hand is a complex system, with a large number of degrees of freedom (DoFs), sensors embedded in its structure, actuators and tendons, and a complex hierarchical control. Despite this complexity, the efforts required to the user to carry out the different movements is quite small (albeit after an appropriate and lengthy training). On the contrary, prosthetic hands are just a pale replication of the natural hand, with significantly reduced grasping capabilities and no sensory information delivered back to the user. Several attempts have been carried out to develop multifunctional prosthetic devices controlled by electromyographic (EMG) signals (myoelectric hands), harness (kinematic hands), dimensional changes in residual muscles, and so forth, but none of these methods permits the "natural" control of more than two DoFs. This article presents a review of the traditional methods used to control artificial hands by means of EMG signal, in both the clinical and research contexts, and introduces what could be the future developments in the control strategy of these devices
Orthotic and Prosthetic Management in Brachial Plexus Injury: Recent Trends
The brachial plexus is a network of intertwined nerve that controls movement and sensation in arm and hand. Any injury to the brachial plexus can result in partial or complete damage of arm and hand. The surgery is a common indicative procedure in brachial plexus injury in case of non-spontaneous recovery. The loss of function of hand due to injury can be replaced by using body powered or externally powered devices. Recent development in treatment protocol of prosthetic and orthotic science using artificial intelligence helps in rehabilitating the persons with brachial plexus injury to regain his confidence and perform daily activities. Combination of advancement in surgical procedure along with artificially intelligent devices opens a new array to rehabilitate the person with brachial plexus injury
Feature Analysis for Classification of Physical Actions using surface EMG Data
Based on recent health statistics, there are several thousands of people with
limb disability and gait disorders that require a medical assistance. A robot
assisted rehabilitation therapy can help them recover and return to a normal
life. In this scenario, a successful methodology is to use the EMG signal based
information to control the support robotics. For this mechanism to function
properly, the EMG signal from the muscles has to be sensed and then the
biological motor intention has to be decoded and finally the resulting
information has to be communicated to the controller of the robot. An accurate
detection of the motor intention requires a pattern recognition based
categorical identification. Hence in this paper, we propose an improved
classification framework by identification of the relevant features that drive
the pattern recognition algorithm. Major contributions include a set of
modified spectral moment based features and another relevant inter-channel
correlation feature that contribute to an improved classification performance.
Next, we conducted a sensitivity analysis of the classification algorithm to
different EMG channels. Finally, the classifier performance is compared to that
of the other state-of the art algorithm
Rehabilitation Engineering
Population ageing has major consequences and implications in all areas of our daily life as well as other important aspects, such as economic growth, savings, investment and consumption, labour markets, pensions, property and care from one generation to another. Additionally, health and related care, family composition and life-style, housing and migration are also affected. Given the rapid increase in the aging of the population and the further increase that is expected in the coming years, an important problem that has to be faced is the corresponding increase in chronic illness, disabilities, and loss of functional independence endemic to the elderly (WHO 2008). For this reason, novel methods of rehabilitation and care management are urgently needed. This book covers many rehabilitation support systems and robots developed for upper limbs, lower limbs as well as visually impaired condition. Other than upper limbs, the lower limb research works are also discussed like motorized foot rest for electric powered wheelchair and standing assistance device
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Intuitive Human-Machine Interfaces for Non-Anthropomorphic Robotic Hands
As robots become more prevalent in our everyday lives, both in our workplaces and in our homes, it becomes increasingly likely that people who are not experts in robotics will be asked to interface with robotic devices. It is therefore important to develop robotic controls that are intuitive and easy for novices to use. Robotic hands, in particular, are very useful, but their high dimensionality makes creating intuitive human-machine interfaces for them complex. In this dissertation, we study the control of non-anthropomorphic robotic hands by non-roboticists in two contexts: collaborative manipulation and assistive robotics.
In the field of collaborative manipulation, the human and the robot work side by side as independent agents. Teleoperation allows the human to assist the robot when autonomous grasping is not able to deal sufficiently well with corner cases or cannot operate fast enough. Using the teleoperator’s hand as an input device can provide an intuitive control method, but finding a mapping between a human hand and a non-anthropomorphic robot hand can be difficult, due to the hands’ dissimilar kinematics. In this dissertation, we seek to create a mapping between the human hand and a fully actuated, non-anthropomorphic robot hand that is intuitive enough to enable effective real-time teleoperation, even for novice users.
We propose a low-dimensional and continuous teleoperation subspace which can be used as an intermediary for mapping between different hand pose spaces. We first propose the general concept of the subspace, its properties and the variables needed to map from the human hand to a robot hand. We then propose three ways to populate the teleoperation subspace mapping. Two of our mappings use a dataglove to harvest information about the user's hand. We define the mapping between joint space and teleoperation subspace with an empirical definition, which requires a person to define hand motions in an intuitive, hand-specific way, and with an algorithmic definition, which is kinematically independent, and uses objects to define the subspace. Our third mapping for the teleoperation subspace uses forearm electromyography (EMG) as a control input.
Assistive orthotics is another area of robotics where human-machine interfaces are critical, since, in this field, the robot is attached to the hand of the human user. In this case, the goal is for the robot to assist the human with movements they would not otherwise be able to achieve. Orthotics can improve the quality of life of people who do not have full use of their hands. Human-machine interfaces for assistive hand orthotics that use EMG signals from the affected forearm as input are intuitive and repeated use can strengthen the muscles of the user's affected arm. In this dissertation, we seek to create an EMG based control for an orthotic device used by people who have had a stroke. We would like our control to enable functional motions when used in conjunction with a orthosis and to be robust to changes in the input signal.
We propose a control for a wearable hand orthosis which uses an easy to don, commodity forearm EMG band. We develop an supervised algorithm to detect a user’s intent to open and close their hand, and pair this algorithm with a training protocol which makes our intent detection robust to changes in the input signal. We show that this algorithm, when used in conjunction with an orthosis over several weeks, can improve distal function in users. Additionally, we propose two semi-supervised intent detection algorithms designed to keep our control robust to changes in the input data while reducing the length and frequency of our training protocol
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