A low-cost real time virtual system for postural stability assessment at home

Background and objective

The degeneration of the balance control system in the elderly and in many pathologies requires measuring the equilibrium conditions very often. In clinical practice, equilibrium control is commonly evaluated by using a force platform (stabilometric platform) in a clinical environment.In this paper, we demonstrate how a simple movement analysis system, based on a 3D video camera and a 3D real time model reconstruction of the human body, can be used to collect information usually recorded by a physical stabilometric platform.

Methods

The algorithm used to reconstruct the human body model as a set of spheres is described and discussed. Moreover, experimental measurements and comparisons with data collected by a physical stabilometric platform are also reported. The measurements were collected on a set of 6 healthy subjects to whom a change in equilibrium condition was stimulated by performing an equilibrium task.

Results

The experimental results showed that more than 95% of data collected by the proposed method were not significantly different from those collected by the classic platform, thus confirming the usefulness of the proposed system.

Conclusions

The proposed virtual balance assessment system can be implemented at low cost (about 500$) and, for this reason, can be considered a home use medical device. On the contrary, astabilometric platform has a cost of about 10,000$ and requires periodical calibration. The proposed system does not require periodical calibration, as is necessary for stabilometric force platforms, and it is easy to use. In future, the proposed system with little integration can be used, besides being an emulator of a stabilometric platform, also to recognize and track, in real time, head, legs, arms and trunk, that is to collect information actually obtained by sophisticated optoelectronic systems.     

Design of a slave arm of a surgical robot system to estimate the contact force at the tip of the employed instruments

Acquisition of the contact force at the instrument tip can enable better performance, e.g. transparency of the haptic feedback in the surgical robot systems. It is, however, difficult to measure the contact force directly due to technical limitations in attaching sensors to the tip of the instruments. This paper proposes a method to estimate the forces by installing the sensors away from the instrument tip. The proposed method employs specially designed mechanical parts of the slave robot, i.e. a slider cover plate for the z-axis translational force along the insertion direction, and docking clamps for the rotational pivot torques around the fulcrum point. Strain gauges are attached to specially designed places with enhancing shapes. The simulation results of the force estimation are presented to confirm the strain concentration area. The proposed method is validated with quantitative experimental results. Calibrated weights are determined upon the comparison of the strain value with a calibrated 6-axis force/torque sensor. The percentage error in the force calibration is about 5~8% calculated by the root mean square error (RMSE) of force-sensing performance. In addition, it can be computed by considering only the bending phase of each sensor although the hysteresis is observed from the calibration graph.     

Tactile display with tangential and normal skin displacement for robot-assisted surgery

This paper proposes a tactile display providing both shear and normal feedback to the fingertip for generating three-axis tactile feedback during teleoperation of a surgical robot. The display is composed of five balloons actuated by controlling the pneumatic pressure. The implemented display is 18?mm?×?18?mm?×?15?mm. This size is suitable for mounting the display onto the master controls of a surgical robot. The maximum normal and shear displacements are 2 and 1.3?mm, respectively. The proposed tactile display may provide perceivable stimuli to a human finger pad in all five directions: normal, distal, proximal, radial, and ulnar. This paper also reports on the results of psychophysical measurement of the minimum perceivable movement of the developed tactile display for each of the five directions.     

Extraction and implementation of muscle synergies in neuro-mechanical control of upper limb movement

This work faces the redundancy problem, a central concern in robotics, in a particular force-producing task by using muscle synergies to simplify the control. We extracted muscle synergies from human electromyograph signals and interpreted the physical meaning of the identified muscle synergies. Based on the human analysis results, we hypothesized a novel control framework that can explain the mechanism of the human motor control. The framework was tested in controlling a pneumatic-driven robotic arm to perform a reaching task. This control method, which uses only two synergies as manipulated variables for driving antagonistic pneumatic artificial muscles to generate desired movements, would be useful to deal with the redundancy problem; thus, suggesting a simple but efficient control for human-like robots to work safely and compliantly with humans.     

基于CPLD的光电编码器角位移拟合测速法

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基于AD7884的分离脱落电连接器机械分离力测试台的设计

基于分级型模数转换器AD7884对分离脱落电连接器的分离力进行测量,采用8位单片机W77E58与之接口,进行数据处理并通过485串口传输到上位机。实现了对分离脱落电连接器的分离力进行测量,系统运行稳定,且与上位机数据交互简单、可靠。     

浅析SRT-Ⅳ裂解炉炉管弯曲及断裂原因

主要分析计算了裂解炉炉管受力情况，进而得出结论：裂解炉自身结构的相互约束力和炉管渗碳是导致炉管弯曲、断裂的主要原因，并提出了相应的解决措施。     

基于受扰动的PMSM系统动力学研究及模拟

借助Lyapunov函数稳定性理论和最优化理论研究了永磁同步电动机系统解的界,得到了它的界估计。通过计算机模拟,数值模拟验证了计算理论的可行性。     

六维腕力传感器非线性正解耦方法设计

多维力传感器利用其多个转换单元完成测量加载于其结构上未知负载的作用效果,解耦是其设计的重要组成部分。针对传统静态线性解耦方法的不足,试图将传统线性解耦方程扩展为多项式结构,受其多元高次方式通解形式的启发,构造了一种多项式非线性静态正解耦方程,该方法无需传统线性解耦方法中的曲线拟合、逆解,不依赖以系统是线性为前提,且方程可以扩展成任意结构的多项式。实验结果表明:该方法能降低输出耦合误差。     

混合步进电机的模糊控制研究

步进电机是非线性、时变、滞后的控制对象,容易受到环境因素的干扰,使得它在工业中的应用受到限制。为了提高两相混合步进电机的控制性能,论文结合模糊PID控制算法形成闭环控制,能够在线整定PID参数,改进了步进电机的控制方式以达到精确控制电机的目的,通过MATLAB仿真软件验证了该控制方法的精确性,并将该研究应用于柱塞式微量计量泵控制系统。