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

Extraction of user's navigation commands from upper body force interaction in walker assisted gait

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The advances in technology make possible the incorporation of sensors and actuators in rollators, building safer robots and extending the use of walkers to a more diverse population. This paper presents a new method for the extraction of navigation related components from upper-body force interaction data in walker assisted gait. A filtering architecture is designed to cancel: (i) the high-frequency noise caused by vibrations on the walker's structure due to irregularities on the terrain or walker's wheels and (ii) the cadence related force components caused by user's trunk oscillations during gait. As a result, a third component related to user's navigation commands is distinguished.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For the cancelation of high-frequency noise, a Benedict-Bordner g-h filter was designed presenting very low values for Kinematic Tracking Error ((2.035 ± 0.358)·10^-2<it>kgf</it>) and delay ((1.897 ± 0.3697)·10¹<it>ms</it>). A <it>Fourier Linear Combiner </it>filtering architecture was implemented for the adaptive attenuation of about 80% of the cadence related components' energy from force data. This was done without compromising the information contained in the frequencies close to such notch filters.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The presented methodology offers an effective cancelation of the undesired components from force data, allowing the system to extract in real-time voluntary user's navigation commands. Based on this real-time identification of voluntary user's commands, a classical approach to the control architecture of the robotic walker is being developed, in order to obtain stable and safe user assisted locomotion.</p

Extraction of user's navigation commands from upper body force interaction in walker assisted gait

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The advances in technology make possible the incorporation of sensors and actuators in rollators, building safer robots and extending the use of walkers to a more diverse population. This paper presents a new method for the extraction of navigation related components from upper-body force interaction data in walker assisted gait. A filtering architecture is designed to cancel: (i) the high-frequency noise caused by vibrations on the walker's structure due to irregularities on the terrain or walker's wheels and (ii) the cadence related force components caused by user's trunk oscillations during gait. As a result, a third component related to user's navigation commands is distinguished.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For the cancelation of high-frequency noise, a Benedict-Bordner g-h filter was designed presenting very low values for Kinematic Tracking Error ((2.035 ± 0.358)·10^-2<it>kgf</it>) and delay ((1.897 ± 0.3697)·10¹<it>ms</it>). A <it>Fourier Linear Combiner </it>filtering architecture was implemented for the adaptive attenuation of about 80% of the cadence related components' energy from force data. This was done without compromising the information contained in the frequencies close to such notch filters.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The presented methodology offers an effective cancelation of the undesired components from force data, allowing the system to extract in real-time voluntary user's navigation commands. Based on this real-time identification of voluntary user's commands, a classical approach to the control architecture of the robotic walker is being developed, in order to obtain stable and safe user assisted locomotion.</p

Collaborative and Inclusive Process with the Autism Community: A Case Study in Colombia About Social Robot Design

One of the most promising areas in which social assistive robotics has been introduced is therapeutic intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (CwASD). Even though there are promising results in therapeutic contexts, there is a lack of guidelines on how to select the appropriate robot and how to design and implement the child-robot interaction. The use of participatory design (PD) methods in the design of technology-based processes for CwASD is a recognition of the stakeholders as "experts" in their fields. This work explores the benefits brought by the use of PD methods in the design of a social robot, with a specific focus on their use in autism spectrum disorders therapies on the Colombian autism community. Based on what proved to be effective in our previous research, we implemented participatory methods for both the CwASD and the stakeholders. The process leverages the active role of participants using a focus group approach with parents and specialists, and scene cards, narrative and handmade generative methods with the children. To overcome some challenges of traditional PD processes, where not all community actors are considered, we included a Colombian community consisting of therapists, nurses, caregivers and parents. The proposed PD process provides an opportunity to learn from several community actors (and thus different cultural and social aspects of developing countries), improving traditional robot design methods. In this way, the findings are summarized through a set of guidelines regarding the design of a social robot-device suitable to be implemented for robot-assisted therapy for CwASD

Human-Walker Interaction on Slopes Based on LRF and IMU Sensors

Abstract-Smart Walkers should be able to safely deal with inclinations in order to become a device effectively useful in the daily life of the elderly population. This paper presents a novel model of human-walker interaction on slopes. The interaction parameters are obtained from a Laser Range Finder (LRF) and an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). This model is integrated into the conventional closed control loop as a supervisor block. This block modifies, based on inclinations, the control set points to provide an adaptable human-walker desired position to improve comfort and safety and enhance user&apos;s confidence in the walker. The practical evaluation shows that the parameters extracted from the natural behavior of the user and the estimated set points determined with the model proposal are highly correlated, presenting a similar trend. This correlation allows performing a more natural control

Feature extraction and classification of sEMG signals applied to a virtual hand prosthesis

This paper presents the classification of motor tasks, using surface electromyography (sEMG) to control a virtual prosthetic hand for rehabilitation of amputees. Two types of classifiers are compared: k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) and Bayesian (Discriminant Analysis). Motor tasks are divided into four groups correlated. The volunteers were people without amputation and several analyzes of each of the signals were conducted. The online simulations use the sliding window technique and for feature extraction RMS (Root Mean Square), VAR (Variance) and WL (Waveform Length) values were used. A model is proposed for reclassification using cross-validation in order to validate the classification, and a visualization in Sammon Maps is provided in order to observe the separation of the classes for each set of motor tasks. Finally, the proposed method can be implemented in a computer interface providing a visual feedback through an virtual hand prosthetic developed in Visual C++ and MATLAB commands

Multimodal Human–Robot Interaction for Walker-Assisted Gait

Human mobility is affected by different types of pathologies and also decreases gradually with age. In this context, Smart Walkers may offer important benefits for human assisted-gait in rehabilitation and functional compensation scenarios. This paper proposes a new interaction strategy for human-walker cooperation. The presented strategy is based on the acquisition of human gait parameters by means of data fusion from inertial measurement units and a laser range finder. This paper includes the mathematical formulation of the controller, simulations, and practical experimentation of the interaction strategy, in order to show the performance of the control system, including the parameter detection methodology. In the experimental study, despite the continuous oscillation during the walking, the parameter estimation was suitable for assisted ambulation, showing an appropriate adaptive behavior with changes in human linear velocity. Finally, the controller keeps the walker continuously following in front of the human gait, and it is shown how the walker orientation follows the human orientation during the real experiments.La movilidad humana se ve afectada por diferentes tipos de patologías y también disminuye paulatinamente con la edad. En este contexto, los Smart Walkers pueden ofrecer importantes beneficios para la marcha asistida por humanos en escenarios de rehabilitación y compensación funcional. Este artículo propone una nueva estrategia de interacción para la cooperación entre humanos y caminantes. La estrategia presentada se basa en la adquisición de parámetros de la marcha humana mediante la fusión de datos de unidades de medición inerciales y un telémetro láser. Este trabajo incluye la formulación matemática del controlador, simulaciones y experimentación práctica de la estrategia de interacción, con el fin de mostrar el desempeño del sistema de control, incluyendo la metodología de detección de parámetros. En el estudio experimental, a pesar de la continua oscilación durante la marcha, la estimación del parámetro fue adecuada para la deambulación asistida, mostrando un comportamiento adaptativo apropiado con cambios en la velocidad lineal humana. Finalmente, el controlador mantiene al caminante siguiendo continuamente el paso del ser humano, y se muestra cómo la orientación del caminante sigue la orientación humana durante los experimentos reales

Capture protocol of forearm sEMG signals with four channels in healthy and amputee people

One of the biggest concerns for control of robotic devices for rehabilitation of amputees is related to the sEMG signal quality. Depending on how clean is the signal, more efficient and effective is the response of the control in relation to the user needs. This article proposes a protocol for sEMG signal capture with the least amount of crosstalk without the use of filters on the forearm with four channels in healthy and amputee people. Extensor digitorum muscle (Channel 1), flexor digitorum superficilis (Channel 2), flexor carpi ulnaris (Channel 3) and flexor pollicislongus (Channel 4) were used. This protocol is used in a series of ten isometric motor tasks related to the movement of the fingers and wrist on the hand. The attenuates 90% of the noise generated by the grid at 59.97 to 60.05 Hz and their harmonics, together with identified unusual noise frequency of 258.1 Hz which was isolated in 75% for the four channels during all motor tasks. This allows the recognition of motor defects with the use of the signal obtained without the use of filters, allowing a lower computational overhead for processing the signal to control a myoelectric hand prosthesis

A therapist helping hand for walker-assisted gait rehabilitation: a pre-clinical assessment

Smart Walkers are robotic devices commonly used to improve physical stability and sensory support for people with lower limb weakness or cognitive impairments. Even though such devices offer continuous monitoring during physical rehabilitation, providing a tool to empower therapists might reduce their efforts and increase patient's safety during gait therapies. The implementation of remote-operation strategies enable therapy managers to remote control and assess the smart walker and user information. In this context, this paper presents a new strategy to control and perceive a walker-assisted gait therapy, by means of a haptic joystick with three operational modes. A set of path following tasks were implemented to validate the operational modes. The kinematic estimation error was calculated, and it was found a decrease in the error, when feedback modes were used. Likewise, results from an usability and acceptance questionnaire show better participant's understating of visual feedback mode, and higher effort perception under haptic feedback mode. This interaction strategy represents a potential joystick application as a safety and control interface in walker-assisted gait

Lower Limb Exoskeletons in Latin-America: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob2018, October 16-20, 2018, Pisa, Italy

This article surveys the main lower limb exoskeletons developed, or under development, in Latin-America, under the REASISTE Ibero American Network. There are several groups working in this field, which approaches and results are comparable to those reported by other groups in Europe or North America (ALLOR, CPWalker, BioMot, Kinesis and CHIEF exoskeletons), the overall activity in this field is comparatively limited. Moreover, we have noticed a lack of clinical experimentation, which further prevents the advancement of the filed in Latin-America. The specific conditions of the healthcare systems, as well as the differences among cultures may yield valuable information towards the rethinking of the design of the exoskeletons.This work is supported by H2020 R&I EXTEND project (Ref. 779982), REASISTE of CYTEDprogramm (Ref. 216RT0504) and Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias del Instituto Carlos III(Ref. PI15/01437)