The prevalence of neurological diseases such as stro-ke, spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury is increasing quickly in the industrialised societies. Although the benefit of the use of technology in rehabilitation and neurorehabilitation programs is prov-ed, the presence of mechatronic systems is still very low. This paper proposes a new lower limb exo-skeleton for gait rehabilitation in persons with neurological pathologies. Since potential users have very reduced mobility even to start common daily movements, the control of the exoskeleton has to be intention based. The estimation of the intention of the user is based on hip and knee angle, and the EMG signal is monitored for intention detection, control and neurofeedback aims. A novel approach of the EMG to force conversion in paraplegic patients is also described.

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The animation of human avatars seems very successful; the computer graphics industry shows outstanding results in films everyday, the game industry achieves exploits… Nevertheless, the animation and control processes of such manikins are very painful. It takes days to a specialist to build such animated sequences, and it is not adaptive to any type of modifications. Our main purpose is the virtual human for engineering, especially virtual prototyping. As for this domain of activity, such amounts of time are pro-hibitive. We focus our work on interactive virtual human enabling to drive avatars in real time thanks to motion capture devices. Unfortunately, at the moment the quality of the animations produced is far from the quality obtained by artists in the computer graphics area. We aim at filling the gap. Thus we proposed the architecture given, which distinguishes, and splits the simulation from the control itself. This architecture, which we introduced in, is innovative for the virtual reality domain, and was borrowed from robotics. Global scheme of our system Many problems must be solved to succeed in. All the problems arise because of the dif-ference between the real world, and the simulated world. This divergence takes two main shapes: the difference in terms of the hu-man, and the difference in terms of the environment of both worlds.

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In the present paper, we introduce a new control architecture aimed at driving virtual humans in interaction with virtual environ-ments, by motion capture. It brings decoupling of functionalities, and also of stability thanks to passivity. We show projections can break passivity, and thus must be used carefully. Our control scheme enables task space and internal control, contact, and joint limits management. Thanks to passivity, it can be easily extended. Besides, we introduce a new tool as for manikin’s control, which makes it able to build passive projections, so as to guide the virtual manikin when sharp movements are needed.

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Physical disabilities such as full or partial loss of function in shoulder, elbow or wrist is a common ailment due to geriatric disorder and other disease processes. To assist such physically disabled and or elderly people, we have been developing a 3DOF mobile exoskeleton robot for rehabilitation and for assisting motion of elbow and shoulder, since human shoulder and elbow motions are involved in a lot of activities of everyday life. The exoskeleton robot is mainly activated and is controlled by the skin surface electromyogram (EMG) signals, since EMG signals of muscles directly reflect how the subject intends to move. In this paper, we propose neuro-fuzzy based motion control with obstacle avoidance behavior of a robotic exoskeleton for rehabilitation and assisting motion of upper-limb of physically disabled or elderly persons.

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BIONIC
For many years, the idea of a human with bionic mus-cles immediately conjures up science fiction images of a TV series superhuman character that was implanted with bionic muscles and portrayed with strength and speed far superior to any normal human. As fantastic as this idea may seem, recent developments in electroactive polymers (EAP) may one day make such bionics possible. Polymers that exhibit large displacement in response to stimulation that is other than elec-trical signal were known for many years. Initially, EAP received relatively little attention due to their limited actuation capability. However, in the recent years, the view of the EAP materials has changed due to the introduction of effective new materials that significantly surpassed the capability of the widely used piezoelectric polymer, PVDF. As this technology continues to evolve, novel mechanisms that are biolo-gically inspired are expected to emerge. EAP materials can potentially provide actuation with lifelike res-ponse and more flexible configurations. While further improvements in performance and robustness are still needed, there already have been several reported successes. In recognition of the need for cooperation in this multidisciplinary field, the author initiated and organized a series of international forums that are leading to a growing number of research and development projects and to great advances in the field. In 1999, he challenged the worldwide science and engineering community of EAP experts to develop a robotic arm that is actuated by artificial muscles to win a wrestling match against a human opponent. In this pa-per, the field of EAP as artificial muscles will be reviewed covering the state of the art, the challenges and the vision for the progress in future years.

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