Virtual Reality technology is currently part of advanced physical rehabilitation therapy. However, several questions remain unanswered: Can this technology improve or even substitute the traditional methodologies? Can it really influence the nervous system or does moving within a virtual environment just motivate the individual to perform? In this paper we present the state of the art, the new advanced technology available and the most promising applications in this field. Finally we will introduce our research as a case study in the area.

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In this paper, the development of an experimental procedure for human elbow joint mechanism is described. The experiment will be set up to imitate the human motion of the elbow joint. In this article, the arm supplied with micro electrical linear actuator to mimic the flexion and extension movements of the human elbow. The main component of the mechanism is the two revolute joints (passive and ac-tive) and the aluminum profile material. The CAD model and the Finite Element Analysis were developed by using SolidWorks software to determine the stresses in critical sectionsof the design.

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Искусственный интеллект (ИИ) и робототехника всегда были тесно связаны друг с другом. Одним из важных направлений ИИ до сих пор считается целенаправленное поведение роботов (создание интеллектуальных роботов, способных автономно совершать операции по достижению целей, поставлен-ных человеком). Сегодня мы наблюдаем узкую специализацию как в области технологий ИИ, так и в области робо-тотехники. Объясняется это тем, что изначально поставленные общие задачи оказались значительно более сложными, требующими создания совершенно иных моделей, методов и технологий, и прежде всего – технологий искусственного интеллекта. Достичь поставленных целей – создание интеллектуальных роботов, поодиночке невозможно, поскольку с одной стороны технологии ИИ должны управлять конкретным, а не «абстрактным» обору-дованием, имеющим свои особенности управления, а с другой стороны — робототехника не может обойтись без технологий ИИ. В работе был дан обзор состояния робототехники и интеллектуальных роботов на 2006 год. В данной работе предпринята попытка определить — какие изменения произошли за прошедшие четыре года в этой области и что нас ждет в ближайшем будущем.

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Determinants of locomotor training involve taskspecificity, repeata-bility, variability, intensity and self-initiative. KNEXO, a unilateral knee exoskeleton has been develo-ped to study the effects of compliant assistance during treadmill gait. Overall, walking within KNEXO, leads to asymmetric kinematics (Figure 1) and changes in naturally occurring muscle activity. Walking without KNEXO and with KNEXO in unassisted mode is difficult to compare as the device is unilateral and the pneumatic muscles give, although weight-compensated, a certain amount of inertia to the movement. Walking with KNEXO in high compliance resembles walking with KNEXO in unassisted mode. Overall, kinematic and EMG data show that the device has its shortcomings (unilateral, 1 DoF, 1 joint) when assisting healthy gait, yet it gives opportunities to study the effects of assistanceas-needed on gait biomechanics.

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Sometimes even identified — albeit incorrectly — with biomechanics, kinesiology is a field relying heavily on biomechanical methodology. Borellian Rennaisance approach, enhanced in the past with seminal contributions by scientists such as Marey, Braune, and Fischer, followed further by the work of the Berkeley Group, and later by a number of modern authors, has put classical me-chanics in the centre of a paradigm taken to understand, analyse and quantitatively assess human movement. As this framework sets both a geometrical and a dynamical definition of the spatial (three dimensional — 3D) movement of human body as a whole, an important further focus of the study may be directed to skeletal muscle itself, a basic actuator of movement and genuine biological system designed to produce mechanical force and cause movement. In this context, to monitor and evaluate human movement, we have a unique, second to none, method: electromyography (EMG); i.e. the recording of electrical activity of skeletal musculature. When studying kinesiological tasks, in particular, surface electromyography (sEMG) is the method’s variant of choice. To quote Hess (Hess, 1954, as cited in Waterland, 1968): „The course of a movement is nothing else but a projection to the outside of a pattern of excitation taking place at a corresponding setting in the central nervous system“. This thought reflects the importance of EMG signals as certain „windows“ into the action of the central nervous system during the performance of a motor task.

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