Applied Sciences

Editorial

Jump to: Research

3 pages, 171 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities

by Carlos A. Jara and Juan A. Corrales

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(4), 2235; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12042235 - 21 Feb 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1612

Abstract

People with congenital and/or acquired disabilities constitute a great number of dependents in today’s society [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

16 pages, 16055 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

A Modular Mobile Robotic Platform to Assist People with Different Degrees of Disability

by Jose M. Catalan, Andrea Blanco, Arturo Bertomeu-Motos, Jose V. Garcia-Perez, Miguel Almonacid, Rafael Puerto and Nicolas Garcia-Aracil

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(15), 7130; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11157130 - 02 Aug 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2136

Abstract

Robotics to support elderly people in living independently and to assist disabled people in carrying out the activities of daily living independently have demonstrated good results. Basically, there are two approaches: one of them is based on mobile robot assistants, such as Care-O-bot, [...] Read more.

Robotics to support elderly people in living independently and to assist disabled people in carrying out the activities of daily living independently have demonstrated good results. Basically, there are two approaches: one of them is based on mobile robot assistants, such as Care-O-bot, PR2, and Tiago, among others; the other one is the use of an external robotic arm or a robotic exoskeleton fixed or mounted on a wheelchair. In this paper, a modular mobile robotic platform to assist moderately and severely impaired people based on an upper limb robotic exoskeleton mounted on a robotized wheel chair is presented. This mobile robotic platform can be customized for each user’s needs by exploiting its modularity. Finally, experimental results in a simulated home environment with a living room and a kitchen area, in order to simulate the interaction of the user with different elements of a home, are presented. In this experiment, a subject suffering from multiple sclerosis performed different activities of daily living (ADLs) using the platform in front of a group of clinicians composed of nurses, doctors, and occupational therapists. After that, the subject and the clinicians replied to a usability questionnaire. The results were quite good, but two key factors arose that need to be improved: the complexity and the cumbersome aspect of the platform. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

11 pages, 3922 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Use Learnable Knowledge Graph in Dialogue System for Visually Impaired Macro Navigation

by Ching-Han Chen, Ming-Fang Shiu and Shu-Hui Chen

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(13), 6057; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11136057 - 29 Jun 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2053

Abstract

Dialogue in natural language is the most important communication method for the visually impaired. Therefore, the dialogue system is the main subsystem in the visually impaired navigation system. The purpose of the dialogue system is to understand the user’s intention, gradually establish context [...] Read more.

Dialogue in natural language is the most important communication method for the visually impaired. Therefore, the dialogue system is the main subsystem in the visually impaired navigation system. The purpose of the dialogue system is to understand the user’s intention, gradually establish context through multiple conversations, and finally provide an accurate destination for the navigation system. We use the knowledge graph as the basis of reasoning in the dialogue system, and then update the knowledge graph so that the system gradually conforms to the user’s background. Based on the experience of using the knowledge graph in the navigation system of the visually impaired, we expect that the same framework can be applied to more fields in order to improve the practicality of natural language dialogue in human–computer interaction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 13039 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Human Pose Detection for Robotic-Assisted and Rehabilitation Environments

by Óscar G. Hernández, Vicente Morell, José L. Ramon and Carlos A. Jara

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 4183; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11094183 - 04 May 2021

Cited by 24 | Viewed by 4424

Abstract

Assistance and rehabilitation robotic platforms must have precise sensory systems for human–robot interaction. Therefore, human pose estimation is a current topic of research, especially for the safety of human–robot collaboration and the evaluation of human biomarkers. Within this field of research, the evaluation [...] Read more.

Assistance and rehabilitation robotic platforms must have precise sensory systems for human–robot interaction. Therefore, human pose estimation is a current topic of research, especially for the safety of human–robot collaboration and the evaluation of human biomarkers. Within this field of research, the evaluation of the low-cost marker-less human pose estimators of OpenPose and Detectron 2 has received much attention for their diversity of applications, such as surveillance, sports, videogames, and assessment in human motor rehabilitation. This work aimed to evaluate and compare the angles in the elbow and shoulder joints estimated by OpenPose and Detectron 2 during four typical upper-limb rehabilitation exercises: elbow side flexion, elbow flexion, shoulder extension, and shoulder abduction. A setup of two Kinect 2 RGBD cameras was used to obtain the ground truth of the joint and skeleton estimations during the different exercises. Finally, we provided a numerical comparison (RMSE and MAE) among the angle measurements obtained with OpenPose, Detectron 2, and the ground truth. The results showed how OpenPose outperforms Detectron 2 in these types of applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 13460 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

A BMI Based on Motor Imagery and Attention for Commanding a Lower-Limb Robotic Exoskeleton: A Case Study

by Laura Ferrero, Vicente Quiles, Mario Ortiz, Eduardo Iáñez and José M. Azorín

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 4106; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11094106 - 30 Apr 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2616

Abstract

Lower-limb robotic exoskeletons are wearable devices that can be beneficial for people with lower-extremity motor impairment because they can be valuable in rehabilitation or assistance. These devices can be controlled mentally by means of brain–machine interfaces (BMI). The aim of the present study [...] Read more.

Lower-limb robotic exoskeletons are wearable devices that can be beneficial for people with lower-extremity motor impairment because they can be valuable in rehabilitation or assistance. These devices can be controlled mentally by means of brain–machine interfaces (BMI). The aim of the present study was the design of a BMI based on motor imagery (MI) to control the gait of a lower-limb exoskeleton. The evaluation is carried out with able-bodied subjects as a preliminary study since potential users are people with motor limitations. The proposed control works as a state machine, i.e., the decoding algorithm is different to start (standing still) and to stop (walking). The BMI combines two different paradigms for reducing the false triggering rate (when the BMI identifies irrelevant brain tasks as MI), one based on motor imagery and another one based on the attention to the gait of the user. Research was divided into two parts. First, during the training phase, results showed an average accuracy of 68.44 ± 8.46% for the MI paradigm and 65.45 ± 5.53% for the attention paradigm. Then, during the test phase, the exoskeleton was controlled by the BMI and the average performance was 64.50 ± 10.66%, with very few false positives. Participants completed various sessions and there was a significant improvement over time. These results indicate that, after several sessions, the developed system may be employed for controlling a lower-limb exoskeleton, which could benefit people with motor impairment as an assistance device and/or as a therapeutic approach with very limited false activations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

27 pages, 30497 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exoscarne: Assistive Strategies for an Industrial Meat Cutting System Based on Physical Human-Robot Interaction

by Harsh Maithani, Juan Antonio Corrales Ramon, Laurent Lequievre, Youcef Mezouar and Matthieu Alric

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 3907; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11093907 - 26 Apr 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2739

Abstract

Musculoskeletal disorders of the wrist are common in the meat industry. A proof of concept of a physical human-robot interaction (pHRI)-based assistive strategy for an industrial meat cutting system is demonstrated which can be transferred to an exoskeleton later. We discuss how a [...] Read more.

Musculoskeletal disorders of the wrist are common in the meat industry. A proof of concept of a physical human-robot interaction (pHRI)-based assistive strategy for an industrial meat cutting system is demonstrated which can be transferred to an exoskeleton later. We discuss how a robot can assist a human in pHRI, specifically in the context of an industrial project i.e for the meat cutting industry. We developed an impedance control-based system that enables a KUKA LWR robot to provide assistive forces to a professional butcher while simultaneously allowing motion of the knife (tool) in all degrees of freedom. We developed two assistive strategies—a force amplification strategy and an intent prediction strategy—and integrated them into an impedance controller. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 13254 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Hand Motor Skills Rehabilitation for the Injured Implemented on a Social Robot

by Francisco Gomez-Donoso, Felix Escalona, Nadia Nasri and Miguel Cazorla

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(7), 2943; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11072943 - 25 Mar 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1798

Abstract

In this work, we introduce HaReS, a hand rehabilitation system. Our proposal integrates a series of exercises, jointly developed with a foundation for those with motor and cognitive injuries, that are aimed at improving the skills of patients and the adherence to the [...] Read more.

In this work, we introduce HaReS, a hand rehabilitation system. Our proposal integrates a series of exercises, jointly developed with a foundation for those with motor and cognitive injuries, that are aimed at improving the skills of patients and the adherence to the rehabilitation plan. Our system takes advantage of a low-cost hand-tracking device to provide a quantitative analysis of the performance of the patient. It also integrates a low-cost surface electromyography (sEMG) sensor in order to provide insight about which muscles are being activated while completing the exercises. It is also modular and can be deployed on a social robot. We tested our proposal in two different facilities for rehabilitation with high success. The therapists and patients felt more motivation while using HaReS, which improved the adherence to the rehabilitation plan. In addition, the therapists were able to provide services to more patients than when they used their traditional methodology. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

16 pages, 3497 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Intelligent Monitoring Platform to Evaluate the Overall State of People with Neurological Disorders

by Jose Maria Vicente-Samper, Ernesto Avila-Navarro, Vicente Esteve and Jose Maria Sabater-Navarro

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(6), 2789; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11062789 - 20 Mar 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1690

Abstract

The percentage of people around the world who are living with some kind of disability or disorder has increased in recent years and continues to rise due to the aging of the population and the increase in chronic health disorders. People with disabilities [...] Read more.

The percentage of people around the world who are living with some kind of disability or disorder has increased in recent years and continues to rise due to the aging of the population and the increase in chronic health disorders. People with disabilities find problems in performing some of the activities of daily life, such as working, attending school, or participating in social and recreational events. Neurological disorders such as epilepsy, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, or Alzheimer’s, are among the main diseases that affect a large number of this population. However, thanks to the assistive technologies (AT), these people can improve their performance in some of the obstacles presented by their disorders. This paper presents a new system that aims to help people with neurological disorders providing useful information about their pathologies. This novelty system consists of a platform where the physiological and environmental data acquisition, the feature engineering, and the machine learning algorithms are combined to generate customs predictive models that help the user. Finally, to demonstrate the use of the system and the working methodology employed in the platform, a simple example case is presented. This example case carries out an experimentation that presents a user without neurological problems that shows the versatility of the platform and validates that it is possible to get useful information that can feed an intelligent algorithm. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (8 papers)

Editorial

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI