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

Mechatronic Systems

Mechatronics, the synergistic blend of mechanics, electronics, and computer science, has evolved over the past twenty five years, leading to a novel stage of engineering design. By integrating the best design practices with the most advanced technologies, mechatronics aims at realizing high-quality products, guaranteeing at the same time a substantial reduction of time and costs of manufacturing. Mechatronic systems are manifold and range from machine components, motion generators, and power producing machines to more complex devices, such as robotic systems and transportation vehicles. With its twenty chapters, which collect contributions from many researchers worldwide, this book provides an excellent survey of recent work in the field of mechatronics with applications in various fields, like robotics, medical and assistive technology, human-machine interaction, unmanned vehicles, manufacturing, and education. We would like to thank all the authors who have invested a great deal of time to write such interesting chapters, which we are sure will be valuable to the readers. Chapters 1 to 6 deal with applications of mechatronics for the development of robotic systems. Medical and assistive technologies and human-machine interaction systems are the topic of chapters 7 to 13.Chapters 14 and 15 concern mechatronic systems for autonomous vehicles. Chapters 16-19 deal with mechatronics in manufacturing contexts. Chapter 20 concludes the book, describing a method for the installation of mechatronics education in schools

Challenges and Solutions on Assistive Technologies: Electronic systems design for people with disabilities

This work of PhD Thesis focuses on technology dedicated to persons with disabilities. This category of devices is known in the academic field and also on the market with the term of Assistive Technology. This name in fact indicates a series of technological solutions that can assist people with disabilities during everyday life and often return to the user one or more skills such as walk, talk, play or trivially change channels when watching television. In the elaborate some of the major contributions made by the candidate to the field of Assistive Technology are presented. However, to better understand the dynamics and the scene of the Assistive Technology worldwide, also the most important and current issues of this field, both technological and economics, are described

Robot Manipulators

Robot manipulators are developing more in the direction of industrial robots than of human workers. Recently, the applications of robot manipulators are spreading their focus, for example Da Vinci as a medical robot, ASIMO as a humanoid robot and so on. There are many research topics within the field of robot manipulators, e.g. motion planning, cooperation with a human, and fusion with external sensors like vision, haptic and force, etc. Moreover, these include both technical problems in the industry and theoretical problems in the academic fields. This book is a collection of papers presenting the latest research issues from around the world

High-precision grasping and placing for mobile robots

This work presents a manipulation system for multiple labware in life science laboratories using the H20 mobile robots. The H20 robot is equipped with the Kinect V2 sensor to identify and estimate the position of the required labware on the workbench. The local features recognition based on SURF algorithm is used. The recognition process is performed for the labware to be grasped and for the workbench holder. Different grippers and labware containers are designed to manipulate different weights of labware and to realize a safe transportation

Kinisi: A Platform for Autonomizing Off-Road Vehicles

This project proposed a modular system that would autonomize off-road vehicles while retaining full manual operability. This MQP team designed and developed a Level 3 autonomous vehicle prototype using an SAE Baja vehicle outfitted with actuators and exteroceptive sensors. At the end of the project, the vehicle had a drive-by-wire system, could localize itself using sensors, generate a map of its surroundings, and plan a path to follow a desired trajectory. Given a map, the vehicle could traverse a series of obstacles in an enclosed environment. The long- term goal is to alter the software system to make it modular and operate in real-time, so the vehicle can autonomously navigate off-road terrain to rescue and aid a distressed individual

A functional electrical stimulation (fes) control system for upper limb rehabilitation

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is the controlled use of electrical pulses to produce contraction of muscles in such a way as to support functional movement. FES is now widely used to aid walking in stroke patients and research into using FES to support other tasks is growing. However, in the more complex applications, it is very challenging to achieve satisfactory levels of FES control.The overall aim of the author’s PhD thesis is to develop improved techniques for real-time Finite State Machine (FSM) control of upper limb FES, using multiple accelerometers for tracking upper limb movement and triggering state transitions. Specific achievements include: 1) Development of new methods for using accelerometers to capture body segment angle during performance of an upper limb task and use of that data to trigger state transitions (angle triggering); 2) Development of new methods to improve the robustness of angle triggering; 3) Development of a flexible finite state-machine controller for control of upper limb FES in real time; 4) In collaboration with a clinical PhD student, implementation of a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows clinical users (e.g. physiotherapists) to set up FSM controllers for FES-assisted upper limb functional tasks.Three alternative methods that use 3-axis accelerometer data to track body segment angle with respect to gravity have been reported. The first uncalibrated method calculates the change in angle during a rotation using the gravity vectors before and after the rotation. The second uncalibrated method calculates the angle between the accelerometer x-axis and the gravity vector. The third calibrated method uses a calibration rotation to define the measurement plane and the positive rotation direction. This method then calculates the component of rotation that is in the same plane as the calibration rotation. All three methods use an algorithm that switches between using sine and cosine, depending on the measured angle, which overcomes the poor sensitivity problem seen in previous methods.xviiiA number of methods can be included in the transition triggering algorithm to improve robustness and hence the usability of the system. The aim of such methods is to reduce the number of incorrect transition timings caused by signal noise, jerky arm movements and other negative effects, which lead to poor control of FES during reaching tasks. Those methods are: 1) Using the change in angle since entering a state rather than absolute angle; 2) Ignoring readings where the acceleration vector is significant in comparison to the gravity vector (i.e. the magnitude of the measured vector is significantly different from 9.81); and 3) Requiring a given number of consecutive or non-consecutive valid readings before triggering a transition. These have been implemented with the second uncalibrated angle tracking method and incorporated into a flexible FSM controller.The flexible FSM controller and the associated setup software are also presented in this thesis, for control of electrical stimulation to support upper limb functional task practice. In order to achieve varied functional task practice across a range of patients, the user should be able to set up a variety of different state machines, corresponding to different functional tasks, tailored to the individual patient. The goal of the work is to design a FSM controller and produce an interface that clinicians (even potentially patients) can use to design and set up their own task and patient-specific FSMs.The software has been implemented in the Matlab-Simulink environment, using the Hasomed RehaStim stimulator and Xsens MTx inertial sensors. The full system has been tested with stroke patients practicing a range of tasks in the laboratory environment, demonstrating the potential for further exploitation of the work