Presently there has been much development of human‐like robotic hands, with most of this research dedicated to creation of prosthetics to aide a handicapped person with everyday tasks. Many of these prosthetics are beginning to use sensors that read muscle movement or nerve signals from the user to control the movement of the prosthetic limb. These prosthetic hands can greatly resemble the human hand in both aesthetic appearance and function, although these hands are only designed to aid the handicapped. As technology increases these designs can be modified to increase gripping capabilities of an average person; mimicking their actual hand movements while increasing strength. A design that can accomplish human like movements while increasing grip strength can be very useful for militaristic purposes, especially since grants have currently been presented to companies for the creation of an exoskeletal robotic suit.

(далее…)

Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

With the ever increasing role of computerized machines in society, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) system has become an increasingly important part of our daily lives. HCI determines the effective utilization of the available information flow of the computing, communication, and display technologies. In recent years, there has been a tremendous interest in introducing intuitive interfaces that can recognize the user’s body movements and translate them into machine commands. For the neural linkage with computers, various biomedical signals (biosignals) can be used, which can be acquired from a specialized tissue, organ, or cell system like the nervous system. Examples include Electro-Encepha-logram (EEG), Electrooculogram (EOG), and Electromyogram (EMG). Such approaches are extremely valuable to physically disabled persons. Many attempts have been made to use EMG signal from gesture for developing HCI. EMG signal processing and controller work is currently proceeding in various direction including the development of continuous EMG signal classification for graphical controller, that enables the physically disabled to use word processing programs and other personal computer software, internet. It also enable manipulation of robotic devices, prosthesis limb, I/O for virtual reality games, physical exercise equipments etc. Most of the developmental area is based on pattern recognition using neural networks. The EMG controller can be programmed to perform gesture recognition based on signal analysis of groups of muscles action potential. This review paper is to discuss the various methodologies and algorithms used for EMG signal classification for the purpose of interpreting the EMG signal into computer command.

(далее…)

Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

A particular emphasis is put on a novel wearable exoskeleton arm, ZJUESA, with 6 degrees of freedom, which is used for the robot teleoperation with the force-feedback in the unknown environment. In this external structure mechanism, the 3-revolution-prismatic-spherical (3RPS) parallel mechanism is devised from the concept of the human upper-limb anatomy and applied for the shoulder 3-DOF joint. Meanwhile, the orthogonal experiment design method is introduced for its optimal design. Aiming at enhancing the performance of teleoperation, the force feedback is employed by the pneumatic system on ZJUESA to produce the vivid feeling in addition to the soft control interface. Due to the compressibility and nonlinearity of the pneumatic force feedback system, a novel hybrid fuzzy controller for the precise force control is proposed and realized based on the Mega8 microcontroller units as the units of the distributed control system on ZJUESA. With the results of several experiments for master-slave control with force feedback, the feasibility of ZJUESA system and the effect of its hybrid fuzzy controller are verified.

(далее…)

Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

(EN)Provided is an action-aiding system, in which the action state of the wearable type action-aiding device (10-1) of a doctor (1) is transmitted via a network to the wearable action-aiding device (10-2) of a patient (2). This action state is reflected on the wearable action-aiding device (10-2) of the patient (2) so that the rehabilitation of the patient (2) is performed. Moreover, the action state of the wearable action-aiding device (10-2) is transmitted from the wearable action-aiding device (10-2) of the patient (2) to the wearable type action-aiding device (10-1). The action state of the wearable action-aiding device (10-2) is reflected on the wearable type action-aiding device (10-1). Thus, the doctor (1) can feel the state of the patient (2) objectively.
(далее…)

Категория: Патенты | Нет комментариев »

Background: Myoelectric control of a robotic manipulator may be disturbed by failures due to disconnected electrodes, interface impedance changes caused by movements, problems in the recording channel and other various noise sources. To correct these prob-lems, this paper presents two fusing techniques, Variance Weighted Average (VWA) and Decentralized Kalman Filter (DKF), both based on the myoelectric signal variance as selecting criterion.
Methods: Tested in five volunteers, a redundant arrangement was obtained with two pairs of electrodes for each recording channel. The myoelectric signals were electronically amplified, filtered and digitalized, while the processing, fusion algorithms and control were implemented in a personal computer under MATLAB® environment and in a Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The experiments used an industrial robotic manipulator BOSCH SR-800, type SCARA, with four degrees of freedom; however, only the first joint was used to move the end effector to a desired position, the latter obtained as proportional to the EMG amplitude.
Results: Several trials, including disconnecting and reconnecting one electrode and disturbing the signal with synthetic noise, were performed to test the fusion techniques. The results given by VWA and DKF were transformed into joint coordinates and used as com-mand signals to the robotic arm. Even though the resultant signal was not exact, the failure was ignored and the joint reference signal never exceeded the workspace limits. Conclusion: The fault robustness and safety characteristics of a myoelectric controlled
manipulator system were substantially improved. The proposed scheme prevents potential risks for the operator, the equipment and the environment. Both algorithms showed efficient behavior. This outline could be applied to myoelectric control of prosthesis, or assistive manipulators to better assure the system functionality when electrode faults or noisy environment are present.

(далее…)

Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »