Development of an Intraoral Interface for Human-Ability Extension Robots

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 819-829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uori Koike ◽  
◽  
Guillermo Enriquez ◽  
Takanobu Miwa ◽  
Huei Ee Yap ◽  
...  

[abstFig src='/00280006/05.jpg' width='300' text='The headset type intraoral interface' ] An extra degree of freedom to human body movement could assist people in a variety of tasks. To this end, we have previously proposed a human-ability extension system through a supernumerary limb. The system comprises of a manipulator that acts as a third arm, a feedback device that displays its status, and an interface that allows for its hands-free operation. Herein, we present this novel, intraoral interface that utilizes tongue motions and expiratory pressure. In contrast to the conventional intraoral interfaces that suffer from a lack of degrees of freedom and stability, our advanced interface is equipped with inertial measurement units and a pressure sensor to solve these problems without sacrificing the ease of use. The proposed interface is utile not only in our ongoing “Third Arm” project, but also in various other applications. We conclude with experimental evaluation of the system’s usability and its efficacy for human-ability extension systems.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Yao Zhang ◽  
Zhigang Song

Biped models (BMs) have extensive applications in structural vibration, robotics, and sports medicine, but the differences between the walking kinematics simulated by the BM model and those measured through an experiment have not been comprehensively recognized. This paper used wireless inertial measurement units (IMUs) to monitor the acceleration of center of masses (COMs) of 6 volunteers walking under the conditions of natural and fixed-knee gait. The observations were compared with the simulations from two typical BMs and also with the measurements from former research studies. The results show that when the step frequency is lower than 2.0 Hz, the peaks of acceleration simulated by BM are close to those observed in experiments and the errors are acceptable, while the step frequency is higher than 2.0 Hz, the discrepancy between the numerical and the experimental results is increasingly larger with higher step frequencies, and the errors can reach 60% at most. The comparison between numerical and experimental results indicates that the knee-fixing assumption of BMs may lead to overestimating the peaks of accelerations, but this assumption fails to explain the different increasing rates with respect to step frequency. Further research studies about the accuracy of BMs and relative modification methods are expected for civil engineering applications.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kuschan ◽  
Henning Schmidt ◽  
Jörg Krüger

Abstract:This paper presents an analysis of two distinct human lifting movements regarding acceleration and angular velocity. For the first movement, the ergonomic one, the test persons produced the lifting power by squatting down, bending at the hips and knees only. Whereas performing the unergonomic one they bent forward lifting the box mainly with their backs. The measurements were taken by using a vest equipped with five Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) with 9 Dimensions of Freedom (DOF) each. In the following the IMU data captured for these two movements will be evaluated using statistics and visualized. It will also be discussed with respect to their suitability as features for further machine learning classifications. The reason for observing these movements is that occupational diseases of the musculoskeletal system lead to a reduction of the workers’ quality of life and extra costs for companies. Therefore, a vest, called CareJack, was designed to give the worker a real-time feedback about his ergonomic state while working. The CareJack is an approach to reduce the risk of spinal and back diseases. This paper will also present the idea behind it as well as its main components.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Thomas Rietveld ◽  
Barry S. Mason ◽  
Victoria L. Goosey-Tolfrey ◽  
Lucas H. V. van der Woude ◽  
Sonja de Groot ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-240
Author(s):  
Simon Beck ◽  
Bernhard Laufer ◽  
Sabine Krueger-Ziolek ◽  
Knut Moeller

AbstractDemographic changes and increasing air pollution entail that monitoring of respiratory parameters is in the focus of research. In this study, two customary inertial measurement units (IMUs) are used to measure the breathing rate by using quaternions. One IMU was located ventral, and one was located dorsal on the thorax with a belt. The relative angle between the quaternion of each IMU was calculated and compared to the respiratory frequency obtained by a spirometer, which was used as a reference. A frequency analysis of both signals showed that the obtained respiratory rates vary slightly (less than 0.2/min) between the two systems. The introduced belt can analyse the respiratory rate and can be used for surveillance tasks in clinical settings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi D’Alfonso ◽  
Emanuele Garone ◽  
Pietro Muraca ◽  
Paolo Pugliese

AbstractIn this work, we face the problem of estimating the relative position and orientation of a camera and an object, when they are both equipped with inertial measurement units (IMUs), and the object exhibits a set of n landmark points with known coordinates (the so-called Pose estimation or PnP Problem). We present two algorithms that, fusing the information provided by the camera and the IMUs, solve the PnP problem with good accuracy. These algorithms only use the measurements given by IMUs’ inclinometers, as the magnetometers usually give inaccurate estimates of the Earth magnetic vector. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is assessed by numerical simulations and experimental tests. The results of the tests are compared with the most recent methods proposed in the literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1804
Author(s):  
Jorge Posada-Ordax ◽  
Julia Cosin-Matamoros ◽  
Marta Elena Losa-Iglesias ◽  
Ricardo Becerro-de-Bengoa-Vallejo ◽  
Laura Esteban-Gonzalo ◽  
...  

In recent years, interest in finding alternatives for the evaluation of mobility has increased. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) stand out for their portability, size, and low price. The objective of this study was to examine the accuracy and repeatability of a commercially available IMU under controlled conditions in healthy subjects. A total of 36 subjects, including 17 males and 19 females were analyzed with a Wiva Science IMU in a corridor test while walking for 10 m and in a threadmill at 1.6 km/h, 2.4 km/h, 3.2 km/h, 4 km/h, and 4.8 km/h for one minute. We found no difference when we compared the variables at 4 km/h and 4.8 km/h. However, we found greater differences and errors at 1.6 km/h, 2.4 km/h and 3.2 km/h, and the latter one (1.6 km/h) generated more error. The main conclusion is that the Wiva Science IMU is reliable at high speeds but loses reliability at low speeds.


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