Evaluation of design recommendations for the development of wheelchair rugby sports-wear

Currently, wheelchair rugby athletes face the challenges of playing the sport without specifically designed sports-wear kit. A few designs and recommendations have already been proposed by researchers but none have made it to market yet. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a set of design recommendations for the development of wheelchair rugby sports-wear. This was done so that the products to be created are developed in collaboration with their potential users, responding to their particular needs and requirements. The evaluation was done through an online survey, where the athletes were presented with a visual representation of the design recommendations. The results indicate that the people questioned agree with the majority of the proposed designs and would be happy to have these improvements made to their current sports-wear. The most criticised recommendations were for the gloves, as they are the most important part of the kit, so it is important that they are adequate and allow for a good performance

A novel approach to identify and quantify activity and performance in wheelchair rugby

Existing methods for performance and activity monitoring of court-based wheelchair sports such as wheelchair rugby during actual matches have their limitations. They either require too much manual efforts or they gather insufficient information. Inertia sensors have the ability to measure substantial amounts of movement data but there is no known method to decipher that huge amount of data for quantifying activity or performance. Based on literature, Fractal dimensions have been applied to signals of physical parameters measured as a time series in the field of sports, biomedical and manufacturing. In all these cases Fractal dimensions of the time-based signals were able to identify different states or conditions accurately. There are several methods of determining Fractal dimensions and for this study, two were narrowed down – one based on Renyi’s generalized dimension (S0) and the other based on Hausdorff dimension (DH). A feasibility study was first conducted to investigate the Fractal dimensions of forward accelerations during manual wheelchair pushing using the two methods. The outcome showed that generally higher Fractal dimension values were linked to higher push amplitudes and frequencies or a higher activeness level. It was identified that S0 related to energy released to the environment while DH showed a connection with activity level. This was then taken further by capturing forward/backward accelerations of wheelchairs during actual wheelchair rugby matches. S0 and DH were calculated from the acceleration data, and four methods were developed using S0 and DH values to identify and quantify activity and performance of the wheelchair rugby athletes. Those methods include cumulative plots of S0 and DH; a Decision template formed using a 2D plot of S0 against DH, and Activities Ranking that is also based on the 2D plot. After the basic process of the methods was developed, steps were taken to optimize the values of S0 and DH such that they are optimal for the identification and quantification outcome of wheelchair rugby activities. The factors that influence S0 and DH values include parameters of the inertia sensing device (sensor resolution and sampling rate), running average window width and amplitude multiplier for calculating DH. In the end, although the number of athletes that were tested was small, the analysis outcome supported results from previous studies where athletes of higher functional classifications showed higher performance. The analysis of activity ranking which had an accuracy of 95% also highlighted that difference in activities between the athletes related highly with their functional classifications and their role or position in the team. The results of the analysis proved to be relevant for coaching, planning matches and even for talent identification

Développement d’un simulateur de propulsion en fauteuil roulant manuel avec biofeedback haptique

La propulsion en fauteuil roulant manuel entraîne une charge élevée et répétée aux épaules, si bien que près d’un utilisateur sur deux y développera de la douleur chronique au cours de sa vie. Il est possible qu’une légère amélioration de l’efficacité de la propulsion contribuerait à réduire le risque et la prévalence de douleur à long terme. Or, l’entraînement de sujets en vue d’améliorer leur efficacité de propulsion a déjà été tenté à l’aide de biofeedback visuel et a fourni des résultats mitigés. En se basant sur les récentes avancées en réadaptation assistée par robotique, nous émettons l’hypothèse qu’un biofeedback haptique serait plus adapté que le biofeedback visuel pour modifier la direction des forces appliquées par l’utilisateur. Le développement d’un simulateur de propulsion en fauteuil roulant manuel constitue le sujet de cette thèse, ce simulateur permettant de fournir un biofeedback haptique à l’utilisateur de façon à rediriger son parcours de direction de forces vers un parcours prédéterminé. Un estimateur de l’orientation des roues avant d’un fauteuil roulant est tout d’abord développé et présenté, celui-ci permettant de déterminer l’orientation des forces de résistance au roulement. Sa précision est de ±5○ à ±8○ selon la trajectoire du fauteuil. Un modèle dynamique du fauteuil et une technique d’identification de ses paramètres sont ensuite développés et validés avec 10 sujets. Comparativement au modèle d’un ergomètre à rouleaux standard, ce modèle estime la vitesse des roues arrière avec près de la moitié de l’erreur lors de manoeuvres de tournants, avec des erreurs de vitesse RMS (valeur efficace) de 6 % à 13 % selon la trajectoire du fauteuil. En troisième lieu, un simulateur de propulsion en fauteuil roulant est réalisé en tant qu’interface haptique à commande d’admittance. Ce simulateur reproduit le modèle dynamique du fauteuil développé précédemment avec une erreur de vitesse RMS de moins de 0,9 %. Finalement, une étude préliminaire sur le biofeedback haptique est réalisée sur un sujet pilote. Cette étude a permis d’augmenter l’efficacité de la propulsion du sujet de 10 %. Le simulateur développé dans cette thèse servira dans un premier temps à étudier l’impact sur l’épaule de différents parcours de direction de forces, et contribuera à étendre les connaissances actuelles sur les meilleures techniques de propulsion. Par la suite, il permettra d’entraîner les utilisateurs de fauteuil roulant manuel à utiliser une technique de propulsion optimale, de façon à réduire le risque de développer de la douleur chronique à l’épaule

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