7,566 research outputs found

    Custom-designed motion-based games for older adults: a review of literature in human-computer interaction

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    Many older adults, particularly persons living in senior residences and care homes, lead sedentary lifestyles, which reduces their life expectancy. Motion-based video games encourage physical activity and might be an opportunity for these adults to remain active and engaged; however, research efforts in the field have frequently focused on younger audiences and little is known about the requirements and benefits of motion-based games for elderly players. In this paper, we present an overview of motion-based video games and other interactive technologies for older adults. First, we summarize existing approaches towards the definition of motion-based video games – often referred to as exergames – and suggest a categorization of motion-based applications into active video games, exergames, and augmented sports. Second, we use this scheme to classify case studies addressing design efforts particularly directed towards older adults. Third, we analyze these case studies with a focus on potential target audiences, benefits, challenges in their deployment, and future design opportunities to investigate whether motion-based video games can be applied to encourage physical activity among older adults. In this context, special attention is paid to evaluation routines and their implications regarding the deployment of such games in the daily lives of older adults. The results show that many case studies examine isolated aspects of motion-based game design for older adults, and despite the broad range of issues in motion-based interaction for older adults covered by the sum of all research projects, there appears to be a disconnect between laboratory-based research and the deployment of motion-based video games in the daily lives of senior citizens. Our literature review suggests that despite research results suggesting various benefits of motion-based play for older adults, most work in the field of game design for senior citizens has focused on the implementation of accessible user interfaces, and that little is known about the long-term deployment of video games for this audience, which is a crucial step if these games are to be implemented in activity programs of senior residences, care homes, or in therapy

    Influence of Perspective on Dynamic Tasks in Virtual Reality

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    Robotic Ball Catching with an Eye-in-Hand Single-Camera System

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    In this paper, a unified control framework is proposed to realize a robotic ball catching task with only a moving single-camera (eye-in-hand) system able to catch flying, rolling, and bouncing balls in the same formalism. The thrown ball is visually tracked through a circle detection algorithm. Once the ball is recognized, the camera is forced to follow a baseline in the space so as to acquire an initial dataset of visual measurements. A first estimate of the catching point is initially provided through a linear algorithm. Then, additional visual measurements are acquired to constantly refine the current estimate by exploiting a nonlinear optimization algorithm and a more accurate ballistic model. A classic partitioned visual servoing approach is employed to control the translational and rotational components of the camera differently. Experimental results performed on an industrial robotic system prove the effectiveness of the presented solution. A motion-capture system is employed to validate the proposed estimation process via ground truth

    Robotic Work-Space Sensing and Control

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    Industrial robots are traditionally programmed using only the internal joint position sensors, in a sense leaving the robot blind and numb. Using external sensors, such as cameras and force sensors, allows the robot to detect the existence and position of objects in an unstructured environment, and to handle contact situations not possible using only position control. This thesis presents work on how external sensors can be used in robot control. A vision-based robotic ball-catcher was implemented, showing how high-speed computer vision can be used for robot control with hard time constraints. Special attention is payed to tracking of a flying ball with an arbitrary number of cameras, how to initialize the tracker when no information about the initial state is available, and how to dynamically update the robot trajectory when the end point of the trajectory is modified due to new measurements. In another application example, force control was used to perform robotic assembly. It is shown how force sensing can be used to handle uncertain position

    Vision-based Augmented Reality Applications

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    Quantifying effects of exposure to the third and first-person perspectives in virtual-reality-based training

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    In the recent years, usage of the third-person perspective (3PP) in virtual training methods has become increasingly viable and despite the growing interest in virtual reality and graphics underlying third-person perspective usage, not many studies have systematically looked at the dynamics and differences between the third and first-person perspectives (1PPs). The current study was designed to quantify the differences between the effects induced by training participants to the third-person and first-person perspectives in a ball catching task. Our results show that for a certain trajectory of the stimulus, the performance of the participants post3PP training is similar to their performance postnormal perspective training. Performance post1PP training varies significantly from both 3PP and the normal perspectiv

    Virtual reality tool for balance training

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    Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Biomédica (área de especialização em Eletrónica Médica)Em todo o mundo, 15 milhões de pessoas sofrem um acidente vascular cerebral (AVC) por ano. Destas, 66% sobrevivem e metade delas ficam com incapacidade permanente de equilíbrio, limitando a sua independência motora e qualidade de vida. Estes pacientes podem recuperar o seu equilíbrio e independência motora através do fenómeno da neuroplasticidade, alcançado com intervenções de reabilitação. Asferramentas de realidade virtual (RV) podem ser utilizadas como complemento àsterapias físicas convencionais, promovendo treinos de alta repetição com estratégias de aprendizagem otimizadas. Assim, os ambientes virtuais podem ser personalizados de acordo com as necessidades iminentes dos pacientes, maximizando a reorganização do cérebro e plasticidade, aumentando a eficácia e acelerando a recuperação do equilíbrio. Não obstante, existe uma falta de ferramentas de RV neste campo, as quais não apresentam uma visão centrada no utilizador. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo conceber, desenvolver e validar uma ferramenta totalmente imersiva baseada em RV, seguindo uma visão centrada no utilizador. A ferramenta de RV desenvolvida inclui quatro desafios virtuais baseados em atividades do dia-a-dia (ADDs), compreendendo um total de nove tarefas motoras. A ferramenta de RV fornece estímulos visuais, sonoros e hápticos, através de óculos de RV, auscultadores incorporados, e comandos vibratórios. Paralelamente, foi realizado um estudo sobre as ADDs mais realizadas e apreciadas, com recurso a um questionário, provando que os desafios virtuais concebidos estão de acordo com a preferência da maioria das pessoas. A partir de uma validação preliminar com sujeitos saudáveis, verificou-se que a ferramenta de RV melhorou significativamente o deslocamento do centro de massa (CDM) na direção mediolateral (ML) e a velocidade mínima do CDM na direção anteroposterior (AP), durante a marcha. Além disso, o deslocamento do CDM e a velocidade máxima e mínima do CDM, nas direções AP e ML, embora não significativas, exibiram melhorias noutras tarefas motoras. Os testes clínicos também revelaram uma melhoria após o treino RV. A avaliação da experiência do utilizador provou a elevada aceitabilidade, valor e utilidade da ferramenta de RV. O trabalho futuro envolve a melhoria da ferramenta com mais e personalizados desafios virtuais e a validação do sistema com doentes durante treinos mais longos.Worldwide, 15 million people suffer a stroke each year. Of these, 66 % survive and half of them are left with permanent balance disabilities, limiting their motor independence and compromising their quality of life. The patients can recover their balance function and regain their motor independence through neuroplasticity phenomenon, achieved by rehabilitation intervention. Virtual reality (VR) tools may be used as a complement to physical therapies to promote high-repetitive training with optimised learning strategies. Thus, virtual environments can be customised according to the patient’s imminent needs, maximising brain reorganisation, allowing to increase the effectiveness and accelerate balance recovery. Nonetheless, there is a lack of VR tools in this field, and no user-centered design is available. This dissertation aims to design, develop, and validate a fully immersive VR-based tool, following a user-centered design. The developed VR tool includes four virtual challenges based on activities of daily living (ADLs), comprising a total of nine motor tasks. The VR-based tool provides visual, sonorous, and haptic stimuli, through a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), built-in headphones, and vibrotactile controllers. In parallel, a study about the most performed and appreciated ADLs was carried out, using a questionnaire, proving that the developed virtual challenges are in accordance with most peoples’ preferences. From a preliminary validation with healthy subjects, the VR tool significantly improved the user’s center of mass (COM) displacement in the mediolateral (ML) direction, and the minimum COM velocity in the anteroposterior (AP) direction when walking. Moreover, COM displacement and the maximum and minimum COM velocity on both AP and ML directions, although not significantly, also showed improvements in many other tasks. Furthermore, clinical tests revealed improvements after VR training. The user experience evaluation proved the high acceptability, value, and usefulness of the VR-based tool. Future work towards enhancing the VR-based tool with more and customised virtual challenges and extending the VR tool validation with end-users throughout a longer training period

    Visual Servoing

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    The goal of this book is to introduce the visional application by excellent researchers in the world currently and offer the knowledge that can also be applied to another field widely. This book collects the main studies about machine vision currently in the world, and has a powerful persuasion in the applications employed in the machine vision. The contents, which demonstrate that the machine vision theory, are realized in different field. For the beginner, it is easy to understand the development in the vision servoing. For engineer, professor and researcher, they can study and learn the chapters, and then employ another application method
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