Acquiring neural signals at high spatial and temporal resolution directly from brain microcircuits and decoding their activity to interpret commands and/or prior planning activity, such as motion of an arm or a leg, is a prime goal of modern neurotechnology. Its practical aims include assistive devices for subjects whose normal neural information pathways are not functioning due to physi-cal damage or disease. On the fundamental side, researchers are striving to decipher the code of multiple neural microcircuits which collectively make up nature’s amazing computing machine, the brain. By implanting biocompatible neural sensor probes directly into the brain, in the form of microelectrode arrays, it is now possible to extract information from interacting populations of neural cells with spatial and temporal resolution at the single cell level. With parallel advances in application of statistical and mathematical techniques tools for deciphering the neural code, extracted populations or correlated neurons, significant understanding has been achieved of those brain commands that control, e.g., the motion of an arm in a primate (monkey or a human subject). These developments are accelerating the work on neural prosthetics where brain derived signals may be employed to bypass, e.g., an injured spinal cord. One key element in achieving the goals for practical and versatile neural prostheses is the development of fully implantable wireless microelectronic Bbraininterfaces within the body, a point of special emphasis of this paper.

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With recent technological advances it has become possible to develop advanced artificial limbs for people with disabilities. This report gives a brief history of the field of Rehabilitation Robotics, and then reviews eight currently produced (either experimentally or commercially) robotic devices designed to assist patients with limb loss or in need of skeletal-muscular assistance. After detailing the use and operation of each device, this report assesses each device on the basis of eight criteria: cost, accessibility, maintainability, training, adaptability, safety, environmental concerns and technological possibility. Each device was given a ranking based on those criteria, and on the basis of those rankings, predictions were made as which technologies are most successful today and most likely to be the basis of future development. This report concludes that the technology contained in the I-Limb is the most likely to be enhanced and further developed.

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Создан лабораторный образец смартлинка. Это многоканальное оптоволоконное соединение, способное автоматически без юстировки восстанавливать разорванные оптические цепи. Следующий этап – сделать это соединение двунаправленным, что возможно с помощью новой технологии разделения оптических сигналов.

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This paper presents the design of ABLE, an anthropomorphic upper limb exoske-leton integrally actuated by highly reversible ball-screw and cable (SCS standing for Screw-and-Cable-System) allowing true joint torque control without force sensor. Their unique kinematics allows their integration in the structure thanks to dedicated mechanical innovations such as the shoulder articulation and the forearm-wrist. The result is an anthropomorphic, lightweight, open architecture which avoids imprisoning the human limb. Applicative projects are briefly presented in: medical rehabilitation, teleoperation and haptics (VR).

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Problem statement: Human arm movement is widely studied nowadays. Some movements of arm are performed frequently in everyday life. Devices that can record the path of movement are important in studying human arm gesture. Approach: This project was performed the five degree-offreedom exoskeleton that was designed and constructed to observe position and orientation values of various movement in x-y-z coordinates of human arm. All joints of the exoskeleton were attached with potentiometers for tracking a human arm trajectory. A dedicated computer with a software application, LabVIEW, obtained the data from arm movement and translated to the end effector coordinate. A calibration method for the exoskeleton was proposed for a particular path, a circle. A value correction for the chosen path was introduced in this calibration process and error of root mean square was used as performance index to measure radial error and geometric error of the exoskeleton. Results: Experiments with a human arm for executing repetitive tasks were performed to study. There were two sets of experiments. With correction factor applied to both experiments, the average Error of Root Mean Square (ERMS) reduced drastically. Conclusion: With the correction factor, this device could use to record particaular movement of human’s arm with small error.

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