Optimization of Humanoid Robot Designs for Human-Robot Ergonomic Payload Lifting

When a human and a humanoid robot collaborate physically, ergonomics is a key factor to consider. Assuming a given humanoid robot, several control architectures exist nowadays to address ergonomic physical human-robot collaboration. This paper takes one step further by considering robot hardware parameters as optimization variables in the problem of collaborative payload lifting. The variables that parametrize robot's kinematics and dynamics ensure their physical consistency, and the human model is considered in the optimization problem. By leveraging the proposed modelling framework, the ergonomy of the interaction is maximized, here given by the agents' energy expenditure. Robot kinematic, dynamics, hardware constraints and human geometries are considered when solving the associated optimization problem. The proposed methodology is used to identify optimum hardware parameters for the design of the ergoCub robot, a humanoid possessing a degree of embodied intelligence for ergonomic interaction with humans. For the optimization problem, the starting point is the iCub humanoid robot. The obtained robot design reaches loads at heights in the range of 0.8-1.5 m with respect to the iCub robot whose range is limited to 0.8-1.2 m. The robot energy expenditure is decreased by about 33%, meanwhile, the human ergonomy is preserved, leading overall to an improved interaction.Comment: Accepted to 2022 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics (Humanoids

Virtual reality navigation system for prostate biopsy

Prostate cancer is the most common non-cutaneous cancer in America. Tumor detection involves non-invasive screening tests, but positive results must be confirmed by a prostate biopsy. About twelve random samples are obtained during the biopsy, which is a systematic procedure traditionally performed with trans-rectal ultrasound (TRUS) guidance to determine prostate location. Recently, methods of fusion between TRUS and preoperative MRI have been introduced in order to perform targeted biopsies aimed to reduce the number of samples to few suspicious areas. Since the TRUS displaces the prostate during the procedure, the preoperative MRI does not match patient anatomy. Therefore, complex MRI deformation algorithms are needed. However, despite the substantial increase in complexity and cost, there is no strong evidence that the TRUS-MRI fusion actually improves accuracy and surgical outcomes. This paper presents an innovative virtual reality surgical navigation system for performing targeted prostate biopsies, without the need of the uncomfortable TRUS. Both biopsy needle and patient anatomy are constantly tracked by an electromagnetic tracking system that provides their 3D position and orientation with respect to the surgical bed. Multiple fiducial markers are placed on the patient skin (at the iliac crest and pubic bone) during MRI scanning. Once in the operative room, the surgeon is presented a stereoscopic 3D volumetric rendering and multiple orthogonal views of the patient anatomy, as well as a virtual representation of the tracked needle. After a simple registration process between the MRI and the tracker coordinate system, the navigation system guides the needle insertion in the patient perineum through several anatomical layers towards the biopsy targets

Online Non-Collocated Estimation of Payload and Articular Stress for Real-Time Human Ergonomy Assessment

Improving the quality of work for human beings is receiving a lot of attention from multiple research communities. In particular, digital transformation in human factors and ergonomics is going to empower the next generation of the socio-technical workforce. The use of wearable sensors, collaborative robots, and exoskeletons, coupled with novel technologies for the real-time assessment of human ergonomy forms the crux of this digital transformation. In this direction, this paper focuses on the open problem of estimating the interaction wrench experienced at the human extremities (such as hands), where the feasibility of direct sensor measurements is not practical. We refer to our approach as non-collocated wrench estimation, as we aim to estimate the wrench at known contact locations but without using any direct force-torque sensor measurements at these known locations. We achieve this by extending the formulation of stochastic inverse dynamics for humans by considering a centroidal dynamics constraint to perform a reliable non-collocated estimation of interaction wrench and the joint torques (articular stress) experienced as a direct consequence of the interaction. Our approach of non-collocated estimation is thoroughly validated in terms of payload estimation and articular stress estimation through validation and experimental scenarios involving dynamic human motions like walking

“Nativi digitali” e apprendimento con le ICT: La ricerca “GenY @ work” in Ticino, Svizzera

L'articolo presenta le radici storiche e il percorso dell'espressione “nativi digitali", introducendo anche il dibattito critico che è nato recentemente a mostrarne limiti e assunti non dimostrati. Presenta poi una ricerca, condotta in Canton Ticino (Svizzera), intesa a studiare le pratiche di uso delle ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) da parte di giovani impiegati in generazione Y, nati cioè dopo il 1980. Oltre a una migliore comprensione della popolazione studiata, la ricerca ha permesso di osservare come alcuni assunti diffusi a proposito della generazione Y e dei nativi digitali siano frutto di ipergeneralizzazioni, e richiedano quindi di essere fortemente limitati e rivalutati in ricerche locali