In-hand manipulation planning using human motion dictionary

Dexterous in-hand manipulation is a peculiar and useful human skill. This ability requires the coordination of many senses and hand motion to adhere to many constraints. These constraints vary and can be influenced by the object characteristics or the specific application. One of the key elements for a robotic platform to implement reliable inhand manipulation skills is to be able to integrate those constraints in their motion generations. These constraints can be implicitly modelled, learned through experience or human demonstrations. We propose a method based on motion primitives dictionaries to learn and reproduce in-hand manipulation skills. In particular, we focused on fingertip motions during the manipulation, and we defined an optimization process to combine motion primitives to reach specific fingertip configurations. The results of this work show that the proposed approach can generate manipulation motion coherent with the human one and that manipulation constraints are inherited even without an explicit formalization

Advanced extravehicular activity systems requirements definition study. Phase 2: Extravehicular activity at a lunar base

The focus is on Extravehicular Activity (EVA) systems requirements definition for an advanced space mission: remote-from-main base EVA on the Moon. The lunar environment, biomedical considerations, appropriate hardware design criteria, hardware and interface requirements, and key technical issues for advanced lunar EVA were examined. Six remote EVA scenarios (three nominal operations and three contingency situations) were developed in considerable detail

Second Annual Workshop on Space Operations Automation and Robotics (SOAR 1988)

Papers presented at the Second Annual Workshop on Space Operation Automation and Robotics (SOAR '88), hosted by Wright State University at Dayton, Ohio, on July 20, 21, 22, and 23, 1988, are documented herein. During the 4 days, approximately 100 technical papers were presented by experts from NASA, the USAF, universities, and technical companies. Panel discussions on Human Factors, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Space Systems were held but are not documented herein. Technical topics addressed included knowledge-based systems, human factors, and robotics

Somatic ABC's: A Theoretical Framework for Designing, Developing and Evaluating the Building Blocks of Touch-Based Information Delivery

abstract: Situations of sensory overload are steadily becoming more frequent as the ubiquity of technology approaches reality--particularly with the advent of socio-communicative smartphone applications, and pervasive, high speed wireless networks. Although the ease of accessing information has improved our communication effectiveness and efficiency, our visual and auditory modalities--those modalities that today's computerized devices and displays largely engage--have become overloaded, creating possibilities for distractions, delays and high cognitive load; which in turn can lead to a loss of situational awareness, increasing chances for life threatening situations such as texting while driving. Surprisingly, alternative modalities for information delivery have seen little exploration. Touch, in particular, is a promising candidate given that it is our largest sensory organ with impressive spatial and temporal acuity. Although some approaches have been proposed for touch-based information delivery, they are not without limitations including high learning curves, limited applicability and/or limited expression. This is largely due to the lack of a versatile, comprehensive design theory--specifically, a theory that addresses the design of touch-based building blocks for expandable, efficient, rich and robust touch languages that are easy to learn and use. Moreover, beyond design, there is a lack of implementation and evaluation theories for such languages. To overcome these limitations, a unified, theoretical framework, inspired by natural, spoken language, is proposed called Somatic ABC's for Articulating (designing), Building (developing) and Confirming (evaluating) touch-based languages. To evaluate the usefulness of Somatic ABC's, its design, implementation and evaluation theories were applied to create communication languages for two very unique application areas: audio described movies and motor learning. These applications were chosen as they presented opportunities for complementing communication by offloading information, typically conveyed visually and/or aurally, to the skin. For both studies, it was found that Somatic ABC's aided the design, development and evaluation of rich somatic languages with distinct and natural communication units.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Computer Science 201

Development of Digital Control Systems for Wearable Mechatronic Devices: Applications in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation of the Upper Limb

The potential for wearable mechatronic systems to assist with musculoskeletal rehabilitation of the upper limb has grown with the technology. One limiting factor to realizing the benefits of these devices as motion therapy tools is within the development of digital control solutions. Despite many device prototypes and research efforts in the surrounding fields, there are a lack of requirements, details, assessments, and comparisons of control system characteristics, components, and architectures in the literature. Pairing this with the complexity of humans, the devices, and their interactions makes it a difficult task for control system developers to determine the best solution for their desired applications. The objective of this thesis is to develop, evaluate, and compare control system solutions that are capable of tracking motion through the control of wearable mechatronic devices. Due to the immaturity of these devices, the design, implementation, and testing processes for the control systems is not well established. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes, control system development and evaluation tools have been proposed. The Wearable Mechatronics-Enabled Control Software framework was developed to enable the implementation and comparison of different control software solutions presented in the literature. This framework reduces the amount of restructuring and modification required to complete these development tasks. An integration testing protocol was developed to isolate different aspects of the control systems during testing. A metric suite is proposed that expands on the existing literature and allows for the measurement of more control characteristics. Together, these tools were used ii ABSTRACT iii to developed, evaluate, and compare control system solutions. Using the developed control systems, a series of experiments were performed that involved tracking elbow motion using wearable mechatronic elbow devices. The accuracy and repeatability of the motion tracking performances, the adaptability of the control models, and the resource utilization of the digital systems were measured during these experiments. Statistical analysis was performed on these metrics to compare between experimental factors. The results of the tracking performances show some of the highest accuracies for elbow motion tracking with these devices. The statistical analysis revealed many factors that significantly impact the tracking performance, such as visual feedback, motion training, constrained motion, motion models, motion inputs, actuation components, and control outputs. Furthermore, the completion of the experiments resulted in three first-time studies, such as the comparison of muscle activation models and the quantification of control system task timing and data storage needs. The successes of these experiments highlight that accurate motion tracking, using biological signals of the user, is possible, but that many more efforts are needed to obtain control solutions that are robust to variations in the motion and characteristics of the user. To guide the future development of these control systems, a national survey was conducted of therapists regarding their patient data collection and analysis methods. From the results of this survey, a series of requirements for software systems, that allow therapists to interact with the control systems of these devices, were collected. Increasing the participation of therapists in the development processes of wearable assistive devices will help to produce better requirements for developers. This will allow the customization of control systems for specific therapies and patient characteristics, which will increase the benefit and adoption rate of these devices within musculoskeletal rehabilitation programs

Skin strain field analysis and mechanical counter pressure prototyping for advanced spacesuit design

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2005.Includes bibliographical references.The primary aim of this thesis is to advance the theory of advanced locomotion mechanical counter pressure (MCP) spacesuits by studying the changes in the human body shape during joint motion. Two experiments take advantage of three-dimensional laser scan technology to measure the shape changes of the human body. The first experiment is an analysis of the surface area and volume of the thigh, knee, calf, and entire leg during knee flexion. The second experiment is an analysis of the full-field strain on the skin surface of the leg during knee flexion. A repeatable and quantitative technique for mapping the leg skin strain field is developed. The results of the algorithm indicate the magnitude of strain over the entire surface of the leg, as well as the direction of minimum leg skin stretching during knee flexion. For 88% of the leg surface, knee flexion causes skin strain between -0.3 and 0.3 (less than 30% contraction or extension). However, just below the patella, longitudinal strain is as high as 0.7, and at the knee hollow, it is as low as -0.6. Circumferential strain values are as high as 1.0 and 0.5 just below the patella and over the calf muscle, respectively, and along the anterior surface of the lower leg, they are as low as -0.7. The leg area, volume, and skin strain results lead to quantitative design requirements for highly mobile second skin spacesuits, and they inspire two prototype MCP leg sleeves: a hybrid urethane-foam bladder garment and a skintight nylon fiber lines of non-extension garment. These two prototypes are constructed and tested for mobility and skin surface pressure. Pressurization of the hybrid foam prototype inhibits leg mobility.(cont.) However, the nylon lines of non-extension prototype shows promise as an advanced locomotion spacesuit design concept. During pressurization to leg surface pressure of 7.5 kPa (56 mmHg, 1.1 psi), the prototype preserves easy mobility to 90 degrees of knee joint flexion. Recommendations are made for improving its pressure production performance to the desired 30 kPa (222 mmHg, 4.3 psi) level.by Kristen Bethke.S.M

Proceedings of the 8th international conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies (ICDVRAT 2010)

The proceedings of the conferenc