Full or partial loss of function in the lower limb is an increasingly common ailment associated with a wide range of injuries, disease processes, and other conditions including sports, occupational, spinal cord injuries, and strokes. Some people are even born with disabilities. To treat such abnormalities, large number of physiotherapy exercises is used which are labour intensive requiring high levels of one to one attention from highly skilled medical personnel. Prior to the introduc-tion of machine assistance, physical therapists have had to manually move the patient’s limbs. This leads to two problems, repetition and strain. The physical therapist is not able to precisely duplicate the movements each time. The machines are capable of doing so, leading to a superior rehabilitation for the patient. The therapists experience strain from having to move the patient’s limbs. To solve the above problems, a device has been developed that helps the disabled ones to perform flexion and extension of lower limbs. It is a framework made up of aluminum, with knee joints and an actuator attached to it, which has to be worn. The complete setup weighs not more than 2 kg. The aim of the project is to generate walking mechanism using PSOC microcontroller.

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Wearable haptic devices with poor position sensing are combined with the Kinect depth sensor by Microsoft. A heuristic hand tracker has been developed. It allows for the animation of the hand avatar in the virtual reality and the implementation of the force rendering algorithm: the position of the fingertips is measured by the hand tracker designed and optimized for Kinect, and the rendering algorithm computes the contact forces for wearable haptic display. Preliminary experiments with qualitative results show the effectiveness of the idea of combining Kinect and wearable haptics.

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In this paper we discuss plans initiated to develop and evaluate multisensory displays (i.e. visual, haptic, tactile) to support dismounted (i.e., not in vehicle) Soldier movement, communication, and targeting. Human factors studies of an array of military operational roles have shown significant demand for focal visual attention that diminishes the capacity for task-sharing and attention allocation, especially in the context of unexpected changes and events. If other sensory modalities can be effectively used in a military environment, the benefit could be significant in increasing survivability, information flow, and mission achievement. We discuss operational task demands and two efforts supported from a 2010 SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) topic.

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A human with muscle weakness can wear a rehabilitation device, e.g. exoskeleton, to receive support during walking. However, how can this support be adjusted in real-time to the intention of the user? The given support should be intuitive, user-specific, compliant and robust to sensor noise. We suggest the use of an adaptive oscillator which can detect the frequency and phase of the user’s gait. The designed oscillator-based controller is capable to adjust the support in real time, based on reliable joint angle measurements. The adaptive oscillator determines the position and velocity reference trajectories, based on the measured joint angles. The controller uses these reference trajectories to attract the current angle respectively velocity. This is part II of a two-part paper. In part I of this paper the controller is optimized using simulations. In part II the performance of the optimized oscillator-based controller is determined for the ankle joint using specially designed pneumatic ankle foot orthoses (PAFO). The PAFO actuate the plantar exion movement with pneumatic muscles. The performance of the controller is analyzed measuring the activity of the Tibialis Anterior and Gastrocnemius Medialis with electromyography (EMG). The oscillator-based controller found the same reference joint angles and velocities in real time compared to the optimization. The desired exoskeleton torques are comparable to the simulations, but the amplitude is lower. The support decreased the EMG activity of the Gastrocnemius Medialis. However, the lack of transparency of the PAFO increased the EMG of the Tibialis Anterior. Overall the oscillator-based controller can give a user-specic support by detecting the gait frequency and learning the gait trajectory. The specially designed PAFO can measure the performance of controllers on humans objectively. The EMG of the Gastrocnemius Medialis can decrease more, when the transparency of the PAFO is increased.

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The main goal of this dissertation is to investigate the biomechanics of octopedal and quadrupedal locomotion in terrestrial animals, common determinants, advantages and limits, in particular of the asymmetric gaits. Two different approach have been chosen: i) a kinematic study of a terrestrial spider, the Brazilian giant tawny-red tarantula, an octopods predator species that hide in burrows, ambush and rapidly bounce the prey with a sprint, and ii) a comparative study of the two types of gallop of the cursorial terrestrial mammals. Eight-legs locomotion has been one of the first travelling modes on land, and spiders display one of the most versatile locomotor repertoire: they move at slow and fast speed, forward-backward-sideways, they climb and even jump, both on firm terrain and from the water surface. Spiders can walk in the two senses at the same speed, just by reversing their diagonal footfall scheme. They turn on the spot like an armoured tank, with opposite direction of the two treads of limbs. Also, the high number of limbs ensures an increased locomotor versatility on uneven and rough terrains, particularly in the likely unawareness of each endpoint location on the ground.

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