958 research outputs found

    Model Transparency: Why do we care?

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    Viabilidade do serviço telecirurgia na Região Autónoma dos Açores suportado pela rede 5G

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    Os avanços tecnológicos na medicina são permanentes e apresentam um cenário de desenvolvimento muito encorajador a vários níveis, tais como tratamentos, equipamentos, medicamentos, vacinas ou segurança hospitalar. As telecomunicações e, em particular, as redes 5G acompanham esta evolução e têm permitido avanços consideráveis ao nível da velocidade, latência e cobertura. A tecnologia da rede 5G é considerada como uma das tecnologias impulsionadoras de diversas mudanças na sociedade. Entre os múltiplos usos que esta oferece, está a Telecirurgia. Em situações em que o paciente precisa de uma cirurgia especializada, mas não existem condições para que este seja transportado até ao local onde possa ser efetuada a intervenção cirúrgica, a Telecirurgia possibilita-lhe o acesso ao procedimento, com a velocidade e a segurança que a tecnologia da rede 5G disponibiliza. Devido à condição geográfica insular da Região Autónoma dos Açores, este estudo poderá ser de enorme importância para quebrar esta condição que se apresenta como uma barreira no campo da saúde. Neste contexto, este trabalho tem como principal objetivo estudar a viabilidade da implementação de um serviço de Telecirurgia na Região Autónoma dos Açores suportada pela rede 5G. Para o efeito, será utilizada a metodologia Survey, com recurso a um inquérito por entrevista, focado nas áreas científicas de medicina e de engenharia, para apoiar as questões de investigação. Após realizar as entrevistas, foi feita uma análise qualitativa de dados com recurso ao software "QSR NVivo" e apresentado um conjunto de conclusões, limitações e considerações futuras.Technological advances in medicine are permanent and present a very encouraging development scenario at various levels, such as treatments, equipment, medicines, vaccines or hospital safety. Telecommunications and, in particular, 5G networks follow this development and have made considerable strides in speed, latency and coverage. 5G network technology is considered one of the driving forces behind various societal changes. Among the multiple uses, it offers is Telesurgery. In situations where the patient needs specialized surgery, but there are no conditions for it to be transported to where surgical intervention can be performed, Telesurgery allows him access to the procedure with the speed and safety that 5G network technology provides. Due to the insular geographical condition of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, this study may be of great importance in breaking this condition, which presents itself as a barrier in health. In this context, this work has as its main objective to present a proposal for guidance for implementing a Telesurgery service in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, supported by the 5G network. In this context, the main objective of this work is to study the feasibility of implementing a Tele-Surgery service in the Autonomous Region of the Azores supported by the 5G network. For this purpose, the Survey methodology will be used, using a survey, with an interview focused on the scientific areas of medicine and engineering to support the research questions. After conducting the interviews, qualitative data analysis was performed using the "QSR NVivo" software and a set of conclusions, limitations and future considerations were presented

    Improving Automated Operations of Heavy-Duty Manipulators with Modular Model-Based Control Design

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    The rapid development of robotization and automation in mobile working machines aims to increase productivity and safety in many industrial sectors. In heavy-duty applications, hydraulically actuated manipulators are the common solution due to their large power-to-weight ratio. As hydraulic systems can exhibit nonlinear dynamic behavior, automated operations with closed-loop control become challenging. In industrial applications, the dexterity of operations for manipulators is ensured by providing interfaces to equip product variants with different tool attachments. By considering these domain-specific tool attachments for heavy-duty hydraulic manipulators (HHMs), the autonomous robotic operating development for all product variants might be a time-consuming process. This thesis aims to develop a modular nonlinear model-based (NMB) control method for HHMs to enable systematic NMB model reuse and control system modularity across different HHM product variants with actuators and tool attachments. Equally importantly, the properties of NMB control are used to improve the high-performance control for multi degrees-of-freedom robotic HHMs, as rigorously stability-guaranteed control systems have been shown to provide superior performance. To achieve these objectives, four research problems (RPs) on HHM controls are addressed. The RPs are focused on damping control methods in underactuated tool attachments, compensating for static actuator nonlinearities, and, equally significantly, improving overall control performance. The fourth RP is introduced for hydraulic series elastic actuators (HSEAs) in HHM applications, which can be regarded as supplementing NMB control with the aim of improving force controllability. Six publications are presented to investigate the RPs in this thesis. The control development focus was on modular NMB control design for HHMs equipped with different actuators and tool attachments consisting of passive and actuated joints. The designed control methods were demonstrated on a full-size HHM and a novel HSEA concept in a heavy-duty experimental setup. The results verified that modular control design for HHM systems can be used to decrease the modifications required to use the manipulator with different tool attachments and floating-base environments

    Health technology assessment framework: adaptation for digital health technology assessment

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    Tecnologia de salut digital; Avaluació de tecnologia sanitària; MetodologiaTecnología de salud digital; Evaluación de tecnología sanitaria; MetodologíaDigital health technology; Health technology assessment; MethodologyEl objetivo principal de este encargo es desarrollar un marco metodológico específico para la ETS de salud digital (ETSd) y se concreta en los siguientes objetivos específicos: determinar qué dominios, dimensiones y subdimensiones debe considerar la ETSd, con especial atención a los modelos de atención no presencial (MANP), la sald móvil (mSalud) y la inteligencia artificial (IA); definir un marco de estándares de evidencia que deben alcanzar estas tecnologías según la clasificación del riesgo que deriva de su uso.L’objectiu principal d’aquest encàrrec és desenvolupar un marc metodològic específic per a l’ATSd i es concreta en els següents objectius específics: determinar quins dominis, dimensions i subdimensions ha de considerar l’ATSd, amb especial atenció als models d’atenció no presencial (MANP), la salut mòbil (mSalut) i la intel·ligència artificial (IA); definir un marc d’estàndards d’evidència que han d’assolir aquestes tecnologies segons la classificació del risc que deriva del seu ús.The main objective of this assignment is to develop a specific methodological framework for the evaluation of digital health technologies (DHTs), and is specified in the following specific objectives: to determine which domains, dimensions, and sub-dimensions should be considered in DHT evaluation, with special attention to non-face-to-face care models (NFTC), mobile health (mHealth), and artificial intelligence (AI); to define a framework of evidence standards that these technologies must achieve according to the risk classification derived from their use

    CloudGripper: An Open Source Cloud Robotics Testbed for Robotic Manipulation Research, Benchmarking and Data Collection at Scale

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    We present CloudGripper, an open source cloud robotics testbed, consisting of a scalable, space and cost-efficient design constructed as a rack of 32 small robot arm work cells. Each robot work cell is fully enclosed and features individual lighting, a low-cost custom 5 degree of freedom Cartesian robot arm with an attached parallel jaw gripper and a dual camera setup for experimentation. The system design is focused on continuous operation and features a 10 Gbit/s network connectivity allowing for high throughput remote-controlled experimentation and data collection for robotic manipulation. CloudGripper furthermore is intended to form a community testbed to study the challenges of large scale machine learning and cloud and edge-computing in the context of robotic manipulation. In this work, we describe the mechanical design of the system, its initial software stack and evaluate the repeatability of motions executed by the proposed robot arm design. A local network API throughput and latency analysis is also provided. CloudGripper-Rope-100, a dataset of more than a hundred hours of randomized rope pushing interactions and approximately 4 million camera images is collected and serves as a proof of concept demonstrating data collection capabilities. A project website with more information is available at https://cloudgripper.org.Comment: Under review at IEEE ICRA 202

    Hands free adjustment of the microscope in microneurosurgery

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    A wide array of medical errors plague the healthcare system. The repercussions of those errors are more palpable in healthcare and more so in the operative microsurgical theater. The surgical microscope, although a key element within it, has a high propensity for errors. The two communication approaches evaluated in this study took advantage of the natural physiology of the human body by tracking and utilizing eye movements and body gestures to execute tasks that would typically require manual interaction with the microscope. Independent trials at the Charité Hospital in Berlin were conducted, and different technological tools like Virtual Reality were utilized to evaluate them. Specialized tasks were created for both of the trials. The results showed us that these body tracking approaches (body gestures and gaze) were almost 30% and 20% faster than the contemporary alternative. In the last 20 years, the diffusion of technology within medicine has been enormous, these new patient-oriented technological approaches could be revolutionary in controlling an existing critical element within the microsurgical theater.Das Gesundheitssystem wird von einer Vielzahl medizinischer Fehler geplagt. Die Auswirkungen dieser Fehler sind im Gesundheitswesen und insbesondere im mikrochirurgischen Operationssaal am deutlichsten spürbar. Das Operationsmikroskop ist zwar ein Schlüsselelement in diesem Bereich, aber dennoch sehr fehleranfällig. Die beiden in dieser Studie untersuchten Kommunikationsansätze verwenden die natürliche Physiologie des menschlichen Körpers, indem sie Augenbewegungen und Körpergesten verfolgen und nutzen, um Aufgaben auszuführen, die normalerweise eine manuelle Interaktion mit dem Mikroskop erfordern würden. In der Charité in Berlin wurden separate Trials durchgeführt und verschiedene technische Hilfsmittel wie Virtual Reality eingesetzt, um sie zu bewerten. Für beide Trials wurden spezielle Aufgaben erstellt. Die Ergebnisse zeigten uns, dass diese Body-Tracking-Ansätze (Körpergesten und Blicke) fast 30 % bzw. 20 % schneller waren als der aktuelle Stand der Technik. In den letzten 20 Jahren hat die Technologie in der Medizin eine enorme Verbreitung erfahren; diese neuen patientenorientierten technologischen Ansätze könnten bei der Kontrolle eines bestehenden kritischen Elements im mikrochirurgischen Bereich revolutionär sein

    Development of a Multisensory Saddle as Input Device for Teleoperation

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    Due to demographic change and a skilled labour shortage in healthcare professions it is of high importance to explore technological assistance in healthcare. This thesis aims to develop a multisensory saddle as an additional input device to the HUG (Haptisches User Gerät) to be used for teleoperation in the SMiLE (Servicerobotik für Menschen in Lebenssituationen mit Einschränkungen) ecosystem. Since the HUG's input is limited to two robotic arms, the operator cannot control the mobile platform and the arms of a robot at the same time. Adding the saddle developed in this thesis to the HUG setup will resolve this, allowing the operator to control a robotic platform by pressing sensors with their legs. After evaluating different sensors, a sensor module is developed around a spring-loaded potentiometer, which is placed on the saddle adjustably to account for differences in the operators' height. Following the implementation of the necessary software infrastructure, the saddle will be validated in a user study comparing two different steering approaches: differential driving with and without the additional option to drive sideways. Obtaining mostly positive results about both the functionality to drive sideways and the saddle as an input device from the study thus concludes the development of a first prototype for the saddle
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