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Taking inspiration from neurophysiological studies on synergies in the human grasping action, this paper tries to demonstrate that it is possible to find a general rule for performing a stable, human-like cylindrical grasp with a robotic hand. To this purpose, the theoretical formulation and the experimental validation of a reach-and-grasp algorithm for determining the optimal hand position and the...
This paper presents the control architecture and the first performance evaluation results of a novel and highly-dexterous 18 degrees of freedom (DOF) miniature master/slave teleoperated robotic system called SPRINT (Single-Port la-paRoscopy bimaNual roboT). The system was evaluated in terms of positioning accuracy, repeatability, tracking error during local teleoperation and end-effector payload....
In this paper, a control model is developed to automate the process of navigation in rat-robot-a new type of bio-robot based on BCI(Brain-Computer Interface) technique. Because of the particular difficulties in rat-robot control, we design a novel control model to ‘learn’ and ‘imitate’ the control behavior of human guidance. General Regression Neural Network (GRNN) model is used to analyze the control...
Early recovery after stroke is significant for slow emergence of volitional movement. Initial movements are constrained by stereotypical co-activation of muscle groups such as shoulder abductors and distal limb flexors resulting in the loss of independent joint control. The objective of this study was to utilize new quantitative methods to evaluate the emergence and progression of the loss of independent...
This paper is focused on investigating force regulation strategies employed by human central nervous system (CNS). The mechanism responsible for force control is extremely important in people's lives, but not yet well understood. We formulate the general model of force regulation and identify several possible control strategies. An experimental approach is used to determine which of the force control...
In order to provide natural, biomimetic control to recently developed powered ankle prostheses, we must characterize the impedance of the ankle during ambulation tasks. To this end, a platform robot was developed that can apply an angular perturbation to the ankle during ambulation and simultaneously acquire ground reaction force data. In this study, we detail the design of the platform robot and...
A motorized upper extremity orthosis based on the passive WREX system is being developed. The orthosis is a 4 dof arm controlled by user residual force inputs. The arm is intended for people with neuromuscular weakness due to muscular dystrophy or spinal muscular atrophy. Previous work determined that actuation in parallel with gravity balancing springs required less torque than actuation in series...
The goal of this study is to better understand how the central nervous system switches between alternative stabilization strategies when presented with an unstable task. A haptic, bimanual manipulandum has been used to emulate an unstable task, which requires subjects to stabilize a virtual mass under the action of a saddle force field with two nonlinear springs, whose stiffness increases with the...
Essential Tremor (ET) refers to involuntary movements of a part of the body. ET patients have serious difficulties in performing daily living activities. Our ultimate goal is to develop a system that can enable ET patients to perform daily living activities. We have been developing an exoskeleton robot for ET patients. We make use of the electromyogram (EMG) signal to control this robot. However,...
In the last years, there has been an increasing interest in using Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) within motor rehabilitation therapies that use robotic devices or functional electro stimulation to help or guide the efforts of the patient to move her body. A crucial step of these therapies is to provide help to the user just when she is actually trying to accomplish a certain motion or task One of...
This paper presents a new identification method for the biomechanical parameters of human tissues for the purpose of improving the accuracy of dynamic organ simulation. We describe the formulation of the method, and also design a robotic system to implement the method using a robotic probe, a medical imaging device, and a numerical simulator for the finite element analysis (FEA). We carried out an...
This paper presents the preliminary performance evaluation of our new wireless ultra-miniaturized inertial measurement unit (IMU) WB-4 by compared with the Vicon motion capture system. The WB-4 IMU primarily contains a mother board for motion sensing, a Bluetooth module for wireless data transmission with PC, and a Li-Polymer battery for power supply. The mother board is provided with a microcontroller...
A surgical skill assessment system was developed to quantify microsurgical skills. Infrared optical makers, an inertial measurement unit, and strain gauges were mounted on tweezers to record surgical tasks. In preliminary experiments, the tool tip trajectory, acceleration, and applied force were measured and microsurgery videos were evaluated by three expert surgeons. The preliminary results indicated...
In this paper, we discuss the design of an adaptive control system for robot-assisted surgery with haptic feedback. Through a haptic device, the surgeon teleoperates the medical instrument in free space, fixed on a remote robot or in contact. In free space, the surgeon feels the motion of the robot. In the present paper, we evaluated the performance of the controller on viscoelastic tissue, modeled...
This paper proposes a framework for tracking both human hand kinematics and object contour during grasping task. The framework is based on modeling the object as point cloud and the use of marker-based tracking. We introduce how to estimate contact sites on both the hand and object, hand enclosing space, and graspable features from recorded data. Two experiments were performed to 1) verify the accuracy...
Multi-joint/multi-degree of freedom (DOF) human arm impedance estimation is important in many disciplines. However, as the number of joints/DOFs increases, it may become intractable to identify the system reliably. A robust, unbiased and tractable estimation method based on a systematic dynamics decomposition, which decomposes a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system into multiple single-input multi-output...
Robotic rehabilitation techniques have the capacity to provide high dosage therapy without the labor burden of conventional methods. The most effective means of using robots to retrain function is not yet known, though many studies now support providing assistance to movement while the user actively participates in that movement. In this study, we compare, in three chronic stroke subjects, a novel...
With the increasing number of robots being developed to physically assist humans in tasks such as rehabilitation and assistive living, more intelligent and personalized control systems are desired. In this paper we propose the use of a musculoskeletal model to estimate the strength of the user, from which information can be utilized to improve control schemes in which robots physically assist humans...
During needle insertion in soft tissue, detection of change in tissue properties is important both for diagnosis to detect pathological tissue and for prevention to avoid puncture of important structures. The presence of a membrane located deep inside the tissue results in a relatively small force variation at the needle tip that can be masked by relatively large friction force between the needle...
The robot described in this paper, SUE (Supinator Extender), adds forearm/wrist rehabilitation functionality to the UCI BONES exoskeleton robot and to the ArmeoSpring rehabilitation device. SUE is a 2-DOF serial chain that can measure and assist forearm supination-pronation and wrist flexion-extension. The large power to weight ratio of pneumatic actuators allows SUE to achieve the forces needed for...
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