The Emerging Role of Robotics in Personal Health Care: Bringing Smart Health Care Home

Affordable, accessible health care is in short supply in the U.S., due to the rapidly aging population; robotics can provide a solution to this problem. This project developed user requirements for a personal health care robot. From interviews with robotics professionals and focus groups with caregivers and the elderly, the team gained an understanding of potential users’ desired functionalities and acceptance of robots. The team developed a taxonomy to characterize robots’ interaction with users. The requirements generated by the studies were used in conjunction with this taxonomy to recommend a robot for use in personal health care. An in-home monitoring system was found to have the greatest potential to benefit the health care industry and the target demographic

The Emerging Role of Robotics in Home Health Care

The demand for health care continues to exceed the supply of affordable, accessible care due in large part to the rapidly aging baby boomer population. The advancing field of robotics can provide an effective solution to this problem. This study aimed to develop a set of user requirements for a personal home health care robot. To generate these requirements, we conducted nine interviews with robotics professionals and three different focus groups with current and future caregivers and the elderly. Using this data we identified prominent and desired functionalities of robots, as well as what may influence their acceptance into the home setting. Our findings indicate that monitoring robots have the biggest acceptance potential among elderly and caregivers

Exomusculature Robotic Sleeve for Upper Limb Stroke Rehabilitation

Traditional physical therapy for upper-limb post- stroke hemiparetic patients often fails to reach the maximum potential for recovery and is unable to provide a complete, quantitative assessment of a patient’s progress. Through the use of robotics the team aimed to create a device free of these faults which would provide a holistic physical therapy solution. The sleeve achieves exomuscular actuation through Bowden cables linked to DC motors housed remotely and is able to flex and extend the fingers and elbow and control pronation and supination of the wrist. Through a sensor array located throughout, a feedback system is able to collect quantitative data on joint angles, fingertip forces, and control all degrees of freedom utilizing this data and several on-board processors

Design of a mmWave Antenna Printed on a Thick Vehicle-Glass Substrate Using a Linearly Arrayed Patch Director and a Grid-Slotted Patch Reflector for High-Gain Characteristics

This paper proposes a 5G glass antenna that can be printed on the thick window glass of a vehicle. The proposed antenna consists of a coplanar waveguide (CPW), a printed monopole radiator, parasitic elements, a linearly arrayed patch director, and a grid-slotted patch reflector. The linearly arrayed patch director and grid-slotted patch reflector are applied to improve the bore-sight gain of the antenna. To verify the performance improvement and feasibility, the proposed antenna is fabricated, and a reflection coefficient and a radiation pattern are measured and compared with the simulation results. The measured reflection coefficient shows broadband characteristics of less than -10 dB from 24.1 GHz to 31.0 GHz (fractional bandwidth of 24.6%), which agrees well with the simulation results. The reflection coefficients are -33.1 dB by measurement and -25.7 dB by simulation, and the maximum gains are 6.2 dBi and 5.5 dBi at 28 GHz, respectively. These results demonstrate that the proposed antenna has high-gain characteristics being suitable for 5G wireless communications

Design of a Metal 3D Printed Double-Ridged Horn Antenna With Stable Gain and Symmetric Radiation Pattern Over a Wide Frequency Range

In this paper, we propose a metal 3D printed double-ridged horn antenna with a truncated cone feeding structure, curve-shaped cavity, and mode suppressor for a feeder of a reflector antenna. The truncated cone feeding structure is employed to obtain symmetrical patterns, and the curve-shaped cavity is implemented to obtain broadband characteristics. The mode suppressor is then applied to maintain a stable bore-sight gain. To simplify the manufacturing and assembly process, the proposed antenna is designed with only two parts and is fabricated using metal 3D printing technology. To verify the performance of the antenna, the voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), bore-sight gains, and radiation patterns are measured in a full anechoic chamber. The measured VSWR shows a maximum of 3.0 and an average of 1.9 from 2 GHz to 18 GHz. At 2 GHz, the measured bore-sight gains in the radiation pattern are 5.37 dBi for co-polarization and −20.7 dBi for cross-polarization. The measured radiation patterns are in good agreement with the simulated results

Design of a Printed 5G Monopole Antenna on Vehicle Window Glass Using Parasitic Elements and a Lattice-Structure Reflector for Gain Enhancement

This letter proposes a novel design for a printed 5G monopole antenna on a vehicle window glass. The proposed antenna consists of a coplanar waveguide (CPW), a monopole radiator, parasitic elements, and a lattice-structure reflector. The parasitic elements are placed on either side of the monopole radiator to improve the bore-sight gain. To solve the radiation pattern distortion problem that occurs due to the thick vehicle window glass, the lattice-structure reflector is printed on the opposite side of the monopole radiator. Through fabrication and measurement of the proposed antenna, it is confirmed that the design improves bore-sight gain, and minimizes the radiation pattern distortion. The results demonstrate that the proposed 5G monopole antenna with parasitic elements and the lattice-structure reflector is suitable for 5G communication in vehicle applications

Stark Tuning of Single-Photon Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride

Single-photon emitters play an essential role in quantum technologies, including quantum computing and quantum communications. Atomic defects in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have recently emerged as new room-temperature single-photon emitters in solid-state systems, but the development of scalable and tunable h-BN single-photon emitters requires external methods that can control the emission energy of individual defects. Here, by fabricating van der Waals heterostructures of h-BN and graphene, we demonstrate the electrical control of single-photon emission from atomic defects in h-BN via the Stark effect. By applying an out-of-plane electric field through graphene gates, we observed Stark shifts as large as 5.4 nm per GV/m. The Stark shift generated upon a vertical electric field suggests the existence of out-of-plane dipole moments associated with atomic defect emitters, which is supported by first-principles theoretical calculations. Furthermore, we found field-induced discrete modification and stabilization of emission intensity, which were reversibly controllable with an external electric field.11Nsciescopu

Generation of PDGFRα+ Cardioblasts from Pluripotent Stem Cells

Isolating actively proliferating cardioblasts is the first crucial step for cardiac regeneration through cell implantation. However, the origin and identity of putative cardioblasts are still unclear. Here, we uncover a novel class of cardiac lineage cells, PDGFRα + Flk1 cardioblasts (PCBs), from mouse and human pluripotent stem cells induced using CsAYTE, a combination of the small molecules Cyclosporin A, the rho-associated coiled-coil kinase inhibitor Y27632, the antioxidant Trolox, and the ALK5 inhibitor EW7197. This novel population of actively proliferating cells is cardiac lineage-committed but in a morphologically and functionally immature state compared to mature cardiomyocytes. Most important, most of CsAYTE-induced PCBs spontaneously differentiated into functional αMHC + cardiomyocytes (M + CMs) and could be a potential cellular resource for cardiac regeneration. © The Author(s) 20171