First Steps towards a Recognition of ADLs with Radio Modules

Abstract-The paper describes a system, designed for unsupervised detecting and recording the activities of daily living (ADL) of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) without human observation. Many miniaturized, radio linked and mobile µC-based tags are used. Some are fixed to objects others are carried by the patients. All tags have a limited and adjustable communication range. Basic concept is to detect, to record and to analyze the combinations of µC-tags. This paper deals especially with a first user interface to evaluate the ADL of a patient as well as an evaluation of our system over several days for some activities with a sensitivity of 92%. This is the last step before entering a clinical environment

Compensation for geometrical deviations in additive manufacturing

The design of additive manufacturing processes, especially for batch production in industrial practice, is of high importance for the propagation of new additive manufacturing technology. Manual redesign procedures of the additive manufactured parts based on discrete measurement data or numerical meshes are error prone and hardly automatable. To achieve the required final accuracy of the parts, often, various iterations are necessary. To address these issues, a data-driven geometrical compensation approach is proposed that adapts concepts from forming technology. The measurement information of a first calibration cycle of manufactured parts is the basis of the approach. Through non-rigid transformations of the part geometry, a new shape for the subsequent additive manufacturing process was derived in a systematic way. Based on a purely geometrical approach, the systematic portion of part deviations can be compensated. The proposed concept is presented first and was applied to a sample fin-shaped part. The deviation data of three manufacturing cycles was utilised for validation and verification

Fault-Tolerance and Error Recovery in an Autonomous Robot with Distributed Controlled Components

Most of the existing autonomous robot systems have a centralized hierarchical control architecture. In such robot systems, all planning, execution control, and monitoring tasks are performed by a single control unit on a defined level. In case of an error that occurs during the execution, this central control unit has the complete knowledge about the past executed actions and is able to reason on the error situation. Besides the centralized control architectures, distributed and decentralized control architectures have been developed to overcome some problems with the centralized systems. Because of the missing overall control, error recovery is more difficult than in centralized systems. This paper presents concepts to obtain fault-tolerance behaviour and error recovery in a distributed controlled robot system. As an example for such a robot system, the Karlsruhe Autonomous Mobile Robot KAMRO is considered that is being developed at IPR. Many experiments were performed with the former..

Task Description, Decomposition, and Allocation in a Distributed Autonomous Multi-Agent Robot System

In this paper a new intelligent control architecture for autonomous multi-robot systems is presented. Furthermore, the paper deals with task description, task distribution, task allocation and coordination of the system components. The main advantage of the new control architecture is the distributed execution of tasks or subtasks by components of the multi-robot system. The components are able to build teams dynamically thereby avoiding the bottle neck problem of the information flow in centralized controlled architectures. To achieve to distributed organized control architectures, the detailed investigation of communication and cooperation between components is imperative. The described intelligent control architecture is to replace the former control architecture of the autonomous robot KAMRO. 1. Introduction During the past few years, the need for large scale and complex systems has become obvious. They are necessary to intelligently carry out tasks in the area of transportation,..

Design of a novel tendon-driven manipulator structure based on monolithic compliant rolling-contact joint for minimally invasive surgery

Purpose!#!Compliant mechanisms are commonly used in the design of manipulator and surgical robotic tools for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) thanks to their compactness, ability of miniaturization and lower part count. However, conventional compliant joint has higher internal stiffness, which limits the bending radius. To overcome this problem, a novel tendon-driven manipulator structure based on monolithic compliant rolling-contact joint (CRCJ) is proposed.!##!Methods!#!The proposed rolling-contact mechanism is used to prevent cable slack during actuation, which occurs in conventional compliant joint design. By means of selective laser sintering (SLS) technique, the CRCJ can be fabricated in a monolithic structure, thus granting the CRCJ both the advantages of compliant joints and rolling-contact mechanism. Simulations with nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) and experiments were conducted to evaluate and compare the mechanical properties of the proposed CRCJ with conventional leaf-type compliant joint including the bending and compliant motion.!##!Results!#!Experimental results showed that the CRCJ has lower bending stiffness, higher maximum bending angle (over [Formula: see text]) and a higher compliance compared to conventional compliant hinges, which allows a larger workspace and reduces the possibility of tissue injury. Agreement was also found between the nonlinear FEA and experiments regarding the relation between actuation force and bending angle. A primary prototype of a 3-DOF handheld laparoscopic manipulator with a diameter of 7 mm was further developed.!##!Conclusion!#!A dexterous tendon-driven monolithic manipulator structure based on CRCJ for MIS is proposed. A preliminary prototype of a handheld laparoscopic manipulator demonstrates the capability of the CRCJ for steerable medical devices. However, design improvements based on FEA and application-orientated prototypes considering anatomical requirements still show room for improvements

Quantitative Assessment of Parkinsonian Tremor Based on an Inertial Measurement Unit

Quantitative assessment of parkinsonian tremor based on inertial sensors can provide reliable feedback on the effect of medication. In this regard, the features of parkinsonian tremor and its unique properties such as motor fluctuations and dyskinesia are taken into account. Least-square-estimation models are used to assess the severities of rest, postural, and action tremors. In addition, a time-frequency signal analysis algorithm for tremor state detection was also included in the tremor assessment method. This inertial sensor-based method was verified through comparison with an electromagnetic motion tracking system. Seven Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients were tested using this tremor assessment system. The measured tremor amplitudes correlated well with the judgments of a neurologist (r = 0.98). The systematic analysis of sensor-based tremor quantification and the corresponding experiments could be of great help in monitoring the severity of parkinsonian tremor