This study examines the feasibility of using electroencephalograms (EEGs) to rapidly detect the intent to open one’s hand in individuals with complete hand paralysis following a subcortical ischemic stroke. If detectable, this motor planning activity could be used in real time to trigger a motorized hand exoskeleton or an electrical stimulation device that opens/closes the hand. While EEG-triggered movement-assist devices could restore function, they may also promote recovery by reinfor-cing the use of remaining cortical circuits. EEGs were recorded while participants were cued to either relax or attempt to extend their fingers. Linear discriminant analysis was used to detect onset of finger extension from the EEGs in a leave-onetrial-out cross-validation process. In each testing trial, the classifier was applied in pseudo real time starting from an initial hand-relaxed phase, through movement planning, and into the initial attempted finger extension phase (finger extension phase estimated from typical time-to-movement-onset measured in the unaffected hand). The classifiers detected attempted finger-extension at a significantly higher rate during both motor planning and early attempted execution compared to rest.

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Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

In order to realize haptic interaction (e.g., holding, pushing, and contacting the object) in virtual environment and mediated haptic communication with human beings (e.g., handshaking), the force feedback is required. Recently there has been a substantial need and interest in haptic displays, which can provide realistic and high fidelity physical interaction in virtual environment. The aim of our research is to implement wearable haptic displays for presentation of realistic feedback (kinesthetic stimulus) to the human arm. We developed wearable devices FlexTorque and FlexTensor that induce forces to the human arm and do not require holding any additional haptic interfaces in the human hand. It is a new technology for Virtual Reality that allows user to explore surroundings freely. The concept of Karate (empty hand) Haptics proposed by us is opposite to conventional interfaces (e.g., Wii Remote, SensAble’s PHANTOM, SPIDAR [1]) that require holding haptic interface in the hand, restricting thus the motion of the fingers in midair. The HapticEye interface allows the blind person to explore the unknown environment in a natural and effective manner. The wearer can literally see the environment by hand.

Категория: Ищем научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

Оказывается экзоскелету не обязательно иметь дополнительный источник энергии чтобы выполнять свои функции.Официальный сайт проекта.

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Категория: Skeletonics | 59 комментариев »

Невзирая на то, что компания NeuroSky обрела известность благодаря весьма прогрессивной сфере деятельности — нейроконтроллерам, то есть машинам, считывающим наши мысли, — продукты этой компании имели только игровое назначение. Ситуация изменится с новой машиной под названием MindWave, представленной на выставке DEMO Spring 2011.

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Категория: Управление | Нет комментариев »

This paper investigates the control algorithm of an exoskeleton for hand rehabilitation, which accomplishes both active and passive rehabilitation training. In the passive mode control the PID control algorithm is executed in the velocity mode of the driver. In the active mode control, control architecture is proposed to deal with in both free space and constraint space. A resistance compensation control method is proposed to reduce the resistance in free space which is caused by the friction of the Bowden cable as well as the moment of inertial. To realize the compensation, force sensors are used to measure the force exerted by the human fingertip. A commercial driver, which could switch between the two control modes by a programmable digital switch rather than changing the physical connection manually, guarantees the realization of the required functions. The experiments are conducted to verify the proposed method, and the results show that in the active control mode, the maximum finger-exerted force with compensation is about two fifths of the force without compensation which means the resistance is greatly reduced. And in the passive mode, the maximum joint position error is about 1.2 degree, which satisfies the requirement in hand rehabilitation application. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

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Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »