Empowering and assisting natural human mobility: The simbiosis walker

This paper presents the complete development of the Simbiosis Smart Walker. The device is equipped with a set of sensor subsystems to acquire user-machine interaction forces and the temporal evolution of user's feet during gait. The authors present an adaptive filtering technique used for the identification and separation of different components found on the human-machine interaction forces. This technique allowed isolating the components related with the navigational commands and developing a Fuzzy logic controller to guide the device. The Smart Walker was clinically validated at the Spinal Cord Injury Hospital of Toledo - Spain, presenting great acceptability by spinal chord injury patients and clinical staf

Automated tracking of the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus)

The electronic, physical, biological and environmental factors involved in the automated remote tracking of the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus) are identified. The current status of the manatee as an endangered species is provided. Brief descriptions of existing tracking and position locating systems are presented to identify the state of the art in these fields. An analysis of energy media is conducted to identify those with the highest probability of success for this application. Logistic questions such as the means of attachment and position of any equipment to be placed on the manatee are also investigated. Power sources and manateeborne electronics encapsulation techniques are studied and the results of a compter generated DF network analysis are summarized

Adaptive physical human-robot interaction (PHRI) with a robotic nursing assistant.

Recently, more and more robots are being investigated for future applications in health-care. For instance, in nursing assistance, seamless Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is very important for sharing workspaces and workloads between medical staff, patients, and robots. In this thesis we introduce a novel robot - the Adaptive Robot Nursing Assistant (ARNA) and its underlying components. ARNA has been designed specifically to assist nurses with day-to-day tasks such as walking patients, pick-and-place item retrieval, and routine patient health monitoring. An adaptive HRI in nursing applications creates a positive user experience, increase nurse productivity and task completion rates, as reported by experimentation with human subjects. ARNA has been designed to include interface devices such as tablets, force sensors, pressure-sensitive robot skins, LIDAR and RGBD camera. These interfaces are combined with adaptive controllers and estimators within a proposed framework that contains multiple innovations. A research study was conducted on methods of deploying an ideal HumanMachine Interface (HMI), in this case a tablet-based interface. Initial study points to the fact that a traded control level of autonomy is ideal for tele-operating ARNA by a patient. The proposed method of using the HMI devices makes the performance of a robot similar for both skilled and un-skilled workers. A neuro-adaptive controller (NAC), which contains several neural-networks to estimate and compensate for system non-linearities, was implemented on the ARNA robot. By linearizing the system, a cross-over usability condition is met through which humans find it more intuitive to learn to use the robot in any location of its workspace, A novel Base-Sensor Assisted Physical Interaction (BAPI) controller is introduced in this thesis, which utilizes a force-torque sensor at the base of the ARNA robot manipulator to detect full body collisions, and make interaction safer. Finally, a human-intent estimator (HIE) is proposed to estimate human intent while the robot and user are physically collaborating during certain tasks such as adaptive walking. A NAC with HIE module was validated on a PR2 robot through user studies. Its implementation on the ARNA robot platform can be easily accomplished as the controller is model-free and can learn robot dynamics online. A new framework, Directive Observer and Lead Assistant (DOLA), is proposed for ARNA which enables the user to interact with the robot in two modes: physically, by direct push-guiding, and remotely, through a tablet interface. In both cases, the human is being “observed” by the robot, then guided and/or advised during interaction. If the user has trouble completing the given tasks, the robot adapts their repertoire to lead users toward completing goals. The proposed framework incorporates interface devices as well as adaptive control systems in order to facilitate a higher performance interaction between the user and the robot than was previously possible. The ARNA robot was deployed and tested in a hospital environment at the School of Nursing of the University of Louisville. The user-experience tests were conducted with the help of healthcare professionals where several metrics including completion time, rate and level of user satisfaction were collected to shed light on the performance of various components of the proposed framework. The results indicate an overall positive response towards the use of such assistive robot in the healthcare environment. The analysis of these gathered data is included in this document. To summarize, this research study makes the following contributions: Conducting user experience studies with the ARNA robot in patient sitter and walker scenarios to evaluate both physical and non-physical human-machine interfaces. Evaluation and Validation of Human Intent Estimator (HIE) and Neuro-Adaptive Controller (NAC). Proposing the novel Base-Sensor Assisted Physical Interaction (BAPI) controller. Building simulation models for packaged tactile sensors and validating the models with experimental data. Description of Directive Observer and Lead Assistance (DOLA) framework for ARNA using adaptive interfaces

Mobile Robots Navigation

Mobile robots navigation includes different interrelated activities: (i) perception, as obtaining and interpreting sensory information; (ii) exploration, as the strategy that guides the robot to select the next direction to go; (iii) mapping, involving the construction of a spatial representation by using the sensory information perceived; (iv) localization, as the strategy to estimate the robot position within the spatial map; (v) path planning, as the strategy to find a path towards a goal location being optimal or not; and (vi) path execution, where motor actions are determined and adapted to environmental changes. The book addresses those activities by integrating results from the research work of several authors all over the world. Research cases are documented in 32 chapters organized within 7 categories next described

Proceedings of the Mobile Satellite Conference

A satellite-based mobile communications system provides voice and data communications to mobile users over a vast geographic area. The technical and service characteristics of mobile satellite systems (MSSs) are presented and form an in-depth view of the current MSS status at the system and subsystem levels. Major emphasis is placed on developments, current and future, in the following critical MSS technology areas: vehicle antennas, networking, modulation and coding, speech compression, channel characterization, space segment technology and MSS experiments. Also, the mobile satellite communications needs of government agencies are addressed, as is the MSS potential to fulfill them

Proceedings of the Fifth International Mobile Satellite Conference 1997

Satellite-based mobile communications systems provide voice and data communications to users over a vast geographic area. The users may communicate via mobile or hand-held terminals, which may also provide access to terrestrial communications services. While previous International Mobile Satellite Conferences have concentrated on technical advances and the increasing worldwide commercial activities, this conference focuses on the next generation of mobile satellite services. The approximately 80 papers included here cover sessions in the following areas: networking and protocols; code division multiple access technologies; demand, economics and technology issues; current and planned systems; propagation; terminal technology; modulation and coding advances; spacecraft technology; advanced systems; and applications and experiments

Haptic interface based on tactile sensors for assistive devices

Tesis leída el 14 de febrero de 2018.Los países desarrollados deben hacer frente al creciente envejecimiento de su población. Un proceso de envejecimiento adecuado requiere capacidad funcional en las actividades del día a día. Así, las tecnologías de asistencia deben lidiar con uno de los principales problemas asociados con la edad: el deterioro de la movilidad. Los bastones y los andadores son prescritos para personas con movilidad reducida, pero aún con capacidad de andar. Sin embargo, hay un considerable número de personas en la tercera edad que necesitan otro tipo de ayuda. En este sentido, las sillas de ruedas eléctricas suponen un medio para el aumento de la participación y de la actividad de sus usuarios. Normalmente, estas sillas se conducen mediante un joystick alojado al final de uno de los reposabrazos. No obstante, este dispositivo no es adecuado para todo tipo de usuarios. Algunos de ellos lo encuentran difícil de usar y, para otros, su manejo no es posible y necesitan de la asistencia de otra persona (aquellos que padecen ciertas enfermedades del sistema nervioso, lesiones en la médula espinal, discapacidad mental, etc.). De esta manera, hay casos en que se requiere la ayuda de un cuidador que desplace la silla. Empujar una silla de ruedas de forma habitual produce distintos tipos de lesiones, por lo que es interesante que los asistentes o cuidadores también se beneficien de las ventajas de las sillas de ruedas eléctricas. En este caso, la solución más común consiste en otro joystick situado en la parte trasera de la silla. Como se ha apuntado anteriormente, este no es un dispositivo cómodo e intuitivo para muchos usuarios. Con respecto a la investigación, con frecuencia los dispositivos de asistencia propuestos basan su interfaz con el asistente en sensores de fuerza. Estos componentes son caros y suponen por tanto una barrera de cara a que el dispositivo llegue al mercado

Bio-Inspired Robotics

Modern robotic technologies have enabled robots to operate in a variety of unstructured and dynamically-changing environments, in addition to traditional structured environments. Robots have, thus, become an important element in our everyday lives. One key approach to develop such intelligent and autonomous robots is to draw inspiration from biological systems. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to provide new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and control. Such biological principles usually originate from animal or even plant models, for robots, which can sense, think, walk, swim, crawl, jump or even fly. Thus, it is believed that these bio-inspired methods are becoming increasingly important in the face of complex applications. Bio-inspired robotics is leading to the study of innovative structures and computing with sensory–motor coordination and learning to achieve intelligence, flexibility, stability, and adaptation for emergent robotic applications, such as manipulation, learning, and control. This Special Issue invites original papers of innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, and novel applications and business models relevant to the selected topics of ``Bio-Inspired Robotics''. Bio-Inspired Robotics is a broad topic and an ongoing expanding field. This Special Issue collates 30 papers that address some of the important challenges and opportunities in this broad and expanding field

Cellulo: Tangible Haptic Swarm Robots for Learning

Robots are steadily becoming one of the significant 21st century learning technologies that aim to improve education within both formal and informal environments. Such robots, called Robots for Learning, have so far been utilized as constructionist tools or social agents that aided learning from distinct perspectives. This thesis presents a novel approach to Robots for Learning that aims to explore new added values by means of investigating uses for robots in educational scenarios beyond those that are commonly tackled: We develop a platform from scratch to be "as versatile as pen and paper", namely as composed of easy to use objects that feel like they belong in the learning ecosystem while being seamlessly usable across many activities that help teach a variety of subjects. Following this analogy, we design our platform as many low-cost, palm-sized tangible robots that operate on printed paper sheets, controlled by readily available mobile computers such as smartphones or tablets. From the learners' perspective, our robots are thus physical and manipulable points of hands-on interaction with learning activities where they play the role of both abstract and concrete objects that are otherwise not easily represented. We realize our novel platform in four incremental phases, each of which consists of a development stage and multiple subsequent validation stages. First, we develop accurately positioned tangibles, characterize their localization performance and test the learners' interaction with our tangibles in a playful activity. Second, we integrate mobility into our tangibles and make them full-blown robots, characterize their locomotion performance and test the emerging notion of moving vs. being moved in a learning activity. Third, we enable haptic feedback capability on our robots, measure their range of usability and test them within a complete lesson that highlights this newly developed affordance. Fourth, we develop the means of building swarms with our haptic-enabled tangible robots and test the final form of our platform in a lesson co-designed with a teacher. Our effort thus contains the participation of more than 370 child learners over the span of these phases, which leads to the initial insights into this novel Robots for Learning avenue. Besides its main contributions to education, this thesis further contributes to a range of research fields related to our technological developments, such as positioning systems, robotic mechanism design, haptic interfaces and swarm robotics