Electromechanical System Integration for a Powered Upper Extremity Orthosis

Wearable robotics for assistance and rehabilitation are not yet considered commercially mainstream products, and as a result have not yet seen advanced controls systems and interfaces. Consequently, the available technology is mostly adapted from systems used in parallel technologies, rather than custom applications intended for human use. This study concerns itself with the design and development of a custom control system for a 2-degree of freedom powered upper extremity orthosis capable of driving elbow flexion/extension 135º and humeral rotation 95º . The orthosis has been evaluated for use as both a long-term assistive technology device for persons with disabilities, and as a short-term rehabilitative tool for persons recovering injury. The target demographics for such a device vary in age, cognitive ability and physical function, thus requiring several input parameters requiring consideration. This study includes a full evaluation of the potential users of the device, as well as parameter considerations that are required during the design phase. The final control system is capable of driving each DOF independently or simultaneously, for a more realistic and natural coupled-motion, with proportional control by pulse-width modulation. The dual-axis joystick interface wirelessly transmits to the 1.21 pound control pack which houses a custom microcontroller-driven PCB and 1800 milliamp-hour lithium-ion rechargeable battery capable of delivering 4 hours of running time. Upon integration with the 2 DOF orthosis device, a user may complete full range of motion with up to 5 pounds in their hand in less than 7 seconds, providing full functionality to complete acts of daily living, thus improving quality of life

Electromechanical System Integration for a Powered Upper Extremity Orthosis

Wearable robotics for assistance and rehabilitation are not yet considered commercially mainstream products, and as a result have not yet seen advanced controls systems and interfaces. Consequently, the available technology is mostly adapted from systems used in parallel technologies, rather than custom applications intended for human use. This study concerns itself with the design and development of a custom control system for a 2-degree of freedom powered upper extremity orthosis capable of driving elbow flexion/extension 135º and humeral rotation 95º . The orthosis has been evaluated for use as both a long-term assistive technology device for persons with disabilities, and as a short-term rehabilitative tool for persons recovering injury. The target demographics for such a device vary in age, cognitive ability and physical function, thus requiring several input parameters requiring consideration. This study includes a full evaluation of the potential users of the device, as well as parameter considerations that are required during the design phase. The final control system is capable of driving each DOF independently or simultaneously, for a more realistic and natural coupled-motion, with proportional control by pulse-width modulation. The dual-axis joystick interface wirelessly transmits to the 1.21 pound control pack which houses a custom microcontroller-driven PCB and 1800 milliamp-hour lithium-ion rechargeable battery capable of delivering 4 hours of running time. Upon integration with the 2 DOF orthosis device, a user may complete full range of motion with up to 5 pounds in their hand in less than 7 seconds, providing full functionality to complete acts of daily living, thus improving quality of life

Development of a pavement life cycle assessment tool for airfield rehabilitation strategies

The demand to provide more sustainable facilities and infrastructure has increased over the past ten years. The ability to measure and quantify the environmental impacts of infrastructure projects like life cycle costs is in higher demand. Life cycle assessment (LCA) studies/tools are developed for highway infrastructure and pavements with a limited number of studies developed for airports and even fewer for the airport pavement infrastructure. A pavement LCA tool called LCA-AIR 1.0 is introduced to fill the necessary gap in quantifying sustainability strategies for airfield pavements. LCA-AIR incorporates the material production, construction/maintenance and rehabilitation, and use phases in the analysis. Standard indicators from TRACI are used to quantify these impacts based on two functional units (square yard and pounds-mile traveled). To assess and evaluate the viable rehabilitation strategies, comprehensive and accurate field data must be collected. A summary of LIDAR and laser scanning technology and projects for highway and airport infrastructure is presented. An LCA case study was performed for three candidate rehabilitation strategies on Taxiway A and B at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, IL: rubblization with mill/asphalt inlay, precast concrete panel replacement, and full depth reconstruction of existing concrete pavement structure. An extensive literature review and investigation into the use of precast concrete pavement on airports in the US and abroad is documented for application to rapid rehabilitation. LCA-AIR showed that each phase contributed at different magnitudes to the environmental impact with the use phase producing the greatest LCA impact factors. The LCA analysis focused on the construction/maintenance and rehabilitation (CMR) phase, as the material production (MP) phase for initial construction and use (U) phase were the same for all cases. The GWP potential for PCP was 2,395 kg CO2/yd2 (4.700x10-10 kg CO2/lb-mile), for rubblization was 2,395 kg CO2/yd2 (4.310x10-10 kg CO2/lb-mile), and for reconstruction was 2,395 kg CO2/yd2 (4.701x10-10 kg CO2/lb-mile). The energy consumed for rubblization was 0.18612 TJ/ yd2 (3.576x10-8 TJ/lb-mile), for PCP was 0.18617 TJ/ yd2 (3.654x10-8 TJ/lb-mile) and for reconstruction was 0.18628 TJ/ yd2 (3.656x10-8 TJ/lb-mile)

Optimization for Commercialization of A Two Degree of Freedom Powered Arm Orthosis

In the United States, more than 18 million people suffer from upper extremity injury. This population is in need of a device both to aid in the completion of activities of daily living (eating and grooming), as well as to provide daily muscular therapy. To assist persons suffering from disabling upper extremity neuromuscular diseases, this thesis concerned the redesign of a powered arm brace from a proof-of-concept design to a more functional, marketable product. The principles of Design for Manufacturability and Assembly (DFMA) were employed as part of the design methodology to create a product that could be scaled into production. Additionally, numerical analyses including Finite Element Analysis (FEA) were completed to prove the both the safety and structural integrity of the orthosis in computer simulations. The design was then successfully tested with marked improvement over the previous design, including a 58% reduction in weight, decreased manufacturing costs, and a significant improvement in functionality and comfort

Development of an augmented reality guided computer assisted orthopaedic surgery system

Previously held under moratorium from 1st December 2016 until 1st December 2021.This body of work documents the developed of a proof of concept augmented reality guided computer assisted orthopaedic surgery system – ARgCAOS. After initial investigation a visible-spectrum single camera tool-mounted tracking system based upon fiducial planar markers was implemented. The use of visible-spectrum cameras, as opposed to the infra-red cameras typically used by surgical tracking systems, allowed the captured image to be streamed to a display in an intelligible fashion. The tracking information defined the location of physical objects relative to the camera. Therefore, this information allowed virtual models to be overlaid onto the camera image. This produced a convincing augmented experience, whereby the virtual objects appeared to be within the physical world, moving with both the camera and markers as expected of physical objects. Analysis of the first generation system identified both accuracy and graphical inadequacies, prompting the development of a second generation system. This too was based upon a tool-mounted fiducial marker system, and improved performance to near-millimetre probing accuracy. A resection system was incorporated into the system, and utilising the tracking information controlled resection was performed, producing sub-millimetre accuracies. Several complications resulted from the tool-mounted approach. Therefore, a third generation system was developed. This final generation deployed a stereoscopic visible-spectrum camera system affixed to a head-mounted display worn by the user. The system allowed the augmentation of the natural view of the user, providing convincing and immersive three dimensional augmented guidance, with probing and resection accuracies of 0.55±0.04 and 0.34±0.04 mm, respectively.This body of work documents the developed of a proof of concept augmented reality guided computer assisted orthopaedic surgery system – ARgCAOS. After initial investigation a visible-spectrum single camera tool-mounted tracking system based upon fiducial planar markers was implemented. The use of visible-spectrum cameras, as opposed to the infra-red cameras typically used by surgical tracking systems, allowed the captured image to be streamed to a display in an intelligible fashion. The tracking information defined the location of physical objects relative to the camera. Therefore, this information allowed virtual models to be overlaid onto the camera image. This produced a convincing augmented experience, whereby the virtual objects appeared to be within the physical world, moving with both the camera and markers as expected of physical objects. Analysis of the first generation system identified both accuracy and graphical inadequacies, prompting the development of a second generation system. This too was based upon a tool-mounted fiducial marker system, and improved performance to near-millimetre probing accuracy. A resection system was incorporated into the system, and utilising the tracking information controlled resection was performed, producing sub-millimetre accuracies. Several complications resulted from the tool-mounted approach. Therefore, a third generation system was developed. This final generation deployed a stereoscopic visible-spectrum camera system affixed to a head-mounted display worn by the user. The system allowed the augmentation of the natural view of the user, providing convincing and immersive three dimensional augmented guidance, with probing and resection accuracies of 0.55±0.04 and 0.34±0.04 mm, respectively

Antennas And Wave Propagation In Wireless Body Area Networks: Design And Evaluation Techniques

Recently, fabrication of miniature electronic devices that can be used for wireless connectivity becomes of great interest in many applications. This has resulted in many small and compact wireless devices that are either implantable or wearable. As these devices are small, the space for the antenna is limited. An antenna is the part of the wireless device that receives and transmits a wireless signal. Implantable and wearable antennas are very susceptible to harmful performance degradation caused by the human body and very difficult to integrate, if not designed properly. A designer need to minimize unwanted radiation absorption by the human body to avoid potential health issues. Moreover, a wearable antenna will be inevitably exposed to user movements and has to deal with influences such as crumpling and bending. These deformations can cause degraded performance or a shifted frequency response, which might render the antenna less effective. The existing wearable and implantable antennas’ topologies and designs under discussion still suffer from many challenges such as unstable antenna behavior, low bandwidth, considerable power generation, less biocompatibility, and comparatively bigger size. The work presented in this thesis focused on two main aspects. Part one of the work presents the design, realization, and performance evaluation of two wearable antennas based on flexible and textile materials. In order to achieve high body-antenna isolation, hence, minimal coupling between human body and antenna and to achieve performance enhancement artificial magnetic conductor is integrated with the antenna. The proposed wearable antennas feature a small footprint and low profile characteristics and achieved a wider -10 dB input impedance bandwidth compared to wearable antennas reported in literature. In addition, using new materials in wearable antenna design such as flexible magneto-dielectric and dielectric/magnetic layered substrates is investigated. Effectiveness of using such materials revealed to achieve further improvements in antenna radiation characteristics and bandwidth and to stabilize antenna performance under bending and on body conditions compared to artificial magnetic conductor based antenna. The design of a wideband biocompatible implantable antenna is presented. The antenna features small size (i.e., the antenna size in planar form is 2.52 mm3), wide -10 dB input impedance bandwidth of 7.31 GHz, and low coupling to human tissues. In part two, an overview of investigations done for two wireless body area network applications is presented. The applications are: (a) respiratory rate measurement using ultra-wide band radar system and (b) an accurate phase-based localization method of radio frequency identification tag. The ultimate goal is to study how the antenna design can affect the overall system performance and define its limitations and capabilities. In the first studied application, results indicate that the proposed sensing system is less affected and shows less error when an antenna with directive radiation pattern, low cross-polarization, and stable phase center is used. In the second studied application, results indicate that effects of mutual coupling between the array elements on the phase values are negligible. Thus, the phase of the reflected waves from the tag is mainly determined by the distance between the tag and each antenna element, and is not affected by the induced currents on the other elements

Realization of Performance Advancements for WPI\u27s UGV - Prometheus

The objective of this project is to design and implement performance improvements for WPI\u27s intelligent ground vehicle, Prometheus, leading to a more competitive entry at the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition. Performance enhancements implemented by the project team include a new upper chassis design, a reconfigurable camera mount, extended Kalman filter-based localization with a GPS receiver and a compass module, a lane detection algorithm, and a modular software framework. As a result, Prometheus has improved autonomy, accessibility, robustness, reliability, and usability

Parallel Manipulators

In recent years, parallel kinematics mechanisms have attracted a lot of attention from the academic and industrial communities due to potential applications not only as robot manipulators but also as machine tools. Generally, the criteria used to compare the performance of traditional serial robots and parallel robots are the workspace, the ratio between the payload and the robot mass, accuracy, and dynamic behaviour. In addition to the reduced coupling effect between joints, parallel robots bring the benefits of much higher payload-robot mass ratios, superior accuracy and greater stiffness; qualities which lead to better dynamic performance. The main drawback with parallel robots is the relatively small workspace. A great deal of research on parallel robots has been carried out worldwide, and a large number of parallel mechanism systems have been built for various applications, such as remote handling, machine tools, medical robots, simulators, micro-robots, and humanoid robots. This book opens a window to exceptional research and development work on parallel mechanisms contributed by authors from around the world. Through this window the reader can get a good view of current parallel robot research and applications

Proceedings of the NSSDC Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies for Space and Earth Science Applications

The proceedings of the National Space Science Data Center Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies for Space and Earth Science Applications held July 23 through 25, 1991 at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center are presented. The program includes a keynote address, invited technical papers, and selected technical presentations to provide a broad forum for the discussion of a number of important issues in the field of mass storage systems. Topics include magnetic disk and tape technologies, optical disk and tape, software storage and file management systems, and experiences with the use of a large, distributed storage system. The technical presentations describe integrated mass storage systems that are expected to be available commercially. Also included is a series of presentations from Federal Government organizations and research institutions covering their mass storage requirements for the 1990's