Two medical engineering projects will be presented that are in the field of motor rehabilitation after stroke. The first project focuses on the restitution of hand and finger movements. The concept is the generation of proprioceptive afferent input by position controlled muscle stimulation. As innovative stimulation method the Repetitive Peripheral Magnetic Stimulation (RPMS) is used. Secondly, a novel control method (Complementary Limb Motion Estimation, CLME) for automated treadmill training for hemiparetic patients is presented. CLME deduces reference motion for the impaired limbs based on the contra-lateral leg. This method aims to increase the patient’s involvement and dominance during rehabilitation, while the robot acts as an assistive slave.

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Исследователи из института нанотехнологий при Техасском университете в Далласе (Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas — NIUTD) создали искусственные мышцы, которые в сто раз сильнее обыкновенных «природных». Для этого учёные использовали необычный материал — пряжу из углеродных нанотрубок.

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This article presents a wearable lower extremity exoskeleton (LEE) designed to augment the ability of a human to walk while carrying payloads. The ultimate goal of the current research is to design and control a wearable power-assisted system that integrates a human’s intellect as the control command. The system in this work consists of an inner exoskeleton and an outer exoskeleton. The inner system measures the movements of the human and controls the outer system, which follows the human movements and supports the payload. A special foot-unit was designed to measure the zero moment points (ZMPs) of the human and the exoskeleton simultaneously. Using the measured human ZMP as the reference, the exoskeleton’s ZMP is controlled by trunk compensation to achieve stable walking. A COTS program, xPC Target, together with toolboxes from MATLAB, were used as a real-time operating system and integrated development environment, and real-time locomotion control of the exoskeleton was successfully implemented in this environment. Finally, some walking experimental results, by virtue of the ZMP control for the inner and outer exoskeletons, show that the stable walking can be achieved.

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