Duygun Erol Barkana

Implementation and Development of an Adaptive Steering-Control System

In this paper, an adaptive steering-control system for a steer-by-wire system, which consists of a vehicle directional-control unit and a driver-interaction unit, is developed. The adaptive online estimation method is used to identify the dynamic parameters of the vehicle directional-control and driver-interaction units. A nonlinear 4-degree-of-freedom (DOF) vehicle model, including the longitudinal, lateral, yaw, and quasi-static roll motions, is derived using Newtonian mechanics to simulate and test the adaptive steering-control system. Experimental results are performed to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed adaptive steering-control system.

Finger exoskeleton for treatment of tendon injuries

A finger exoskeleton has been developed to aid treatment of tendon injuries. The exoskeleton is designed to assist flexion/extension motions of a finger within its full range, in a natural and coordinated manner, while keeping the tendon tension within acceptable limits to avoid gap formation or rupture of the suture. In addition to offering robot assisted operation modes for tendon therapies, the exoskeleton can provide quantitative measures of recovery that can help guide the physical therapy program. Usability studies have been conducted and efficacy of exoskeleton driven exercises to reduce muscle requitement levels has been demonstrated.

Improvement of design of a surgical interface using an eye tracking device

BackgroundSurgical interfaces are used for helping surgeons in interpretation and quantification of the patient information, and for the presentation of an integrated workflow where all available data are combined to enable optimal treatments. Human factors research provides a systematic approach to design user interfaces with safety, accuracy, satisfaction and comfort. One of the human factors research called user-centered design approach is used to develop a surgical interface for kidney tumor cryoablation. An eye tracking device is used to obtain the best configuration of the developed surgical interface.MethodsSurgical interface for kidney tumor cryoablation has been developed considering the four phases of user-centered design approach, which are analysis, design, implementation and deployment. Possible configurations of the surgical interface, which comprise various combinations of menu-based command controls, visual display of multi-modal medical images, 2D and 3D models of the surgical environment, graphical or tabulated information, visual alerts, etc., has been developed. Experiments of a simulated cryoablation of a tumor task have been performed with surgeons to evaluate the proposed surgical interface. Fixation durations and number of fixations at informative regions of the surgical interface have been analyzed, and these data are used to modify the surgical interface.ResultsEye movement data has shown that participants concentrated their attention on informative regions more when the number of displayed Computer Tomography (CT) images has been reduced. Additionally, the time required to complete the kidney tumor cryoablation task by the participants had been decreased with the reduced number of CT images. Furthermore, the fixation durations obtained after the revision of the surgical interface are very close to what is observed in visual search and natural scene perception studies suggesting more efficient and comfortable interaction with the surgical interface. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) and Short Post-Assessment Situational Awareness (SPASA) questionnaire results have shown that overall mental workload of surgeons related with surgical interface has been low as it has been aimed, and overall situational awareness scores of surgeons have been considerably high.ConclusionsThis preliminary study highlights the improvement of a developed surgical interface using eye tracking technology to obtain the best SI configuration. The results presented here reveal that visual surgical interface design prepared according to eye movement characteristics may lead to improved usability.

Upper-Extremity Rehabilitation Robot RehabRoby: Methodology, Design, Usability and Validation

In this study, an exoskeleton type robot-assisted rehabilitation system, called RehabRoby, is developed for rehabilitation purposes. A control architecture, which contains a high-level controller and a low-level controller, is designed so that RehabRoby can complete the given rehabilitation task in a desired and safe manner. A hybrid system modelling technique is used for the high-level controller. An admittance control with an inner robust position control loop is used for the low-level control of the RehabRoby. Real-time experiments are performed to evaluate the control architecture of the robot-assisted rehabilitation system, RehabRoby. Furthermore, the usability of RehabRoby is evaluated.

Impact of Visual Error Augmentation When Integrated With Assist-as-Needed Training Method in Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation

The paper investigates the impact of the integration of the visual error augmentation training method with the assist-as-needed training method in robot-assisted rehabilitation training of the upper extremity. A robot-assisted rehabilitation system is developed that integrates an assistive controller, which can provide robotic assistance to the participant as and when needed, with a visual error augmentation mechanism, which amplifies the tracking error to heighten the participants motivation to improve tracking accuracy. A crossover study is designed to evaluate the impact of the integration of the visual error augmentation method with the assist-as-needed training method. Experimental results on unimpaired participants demonstrate improved performance has been achieved in the integrated training session.

Development of a Cognitive Robotic System for Simple Surgical Tasks

The introduction of robotic surgery within the operating rooms has significantly improved the quality of many surgical procedures. Recently, the research on medical robotic systems focused on increasing the level of autonomy in order to give them the possibility to carry out simple surgical actions autonomously. This paper reports on the development of technologies for introducing automation within the surgical workflow. The results have been obtained during the ongoing FP7 European funded project Intelligent Surgical Robotics (I-SUR). The main goal of the project is to demonstrate that autonomous robotic surgical systems can carry out simple surgical tasks effectively and without major intervention by surgeons. To fulfil this goal, we have developed innovative solutions (both in terms of technologies and algorithms) for the following aspects: fabrication of soft organ models starting from CT images, surgical planning and execution of movement of robot arms in contact with a deformable environment, designing a surgical interface minimizing the cognitive load of the surgeon supervising the actions, intra-operative sensing and reasoning to detect normal transitions and unexpected events. All these technologies have been integrated using a component-based software architecture to control a novel robot designed to perform the surgical actions under study. In this work we provide an overview of our system and report on preliminary results of the automatic execution of needle insertion for the cryoablation of kidney tumours.

Design and control of an upper Limb Exoskeleton robot RehabRoby

In this work, an exoskeleton type robot-assisted rehabilitation system called RehabRoby is developed for rehabilitation purposes. A control architecture, which contains a high-level controller and a low-level controller, is designed for RehabRoby to complete the rehabilitation task in a desired and safe manner. A hybrid system modeling technique is used for high-level controller. An admittance control with inner robust position control loop has been used for the low-level control of RehabRoby. Real-time experiments are performed to evaluate the control architecture of the robot-assisted rehabilitation system RehabRoby.

Assessment of surgeon's stress level and alertness using EEG during laparoscopic simple nephrectomy

Laparoscopic simple nephrectomy (LSN) is an accepted treatment modality for nonfunctioning kidneys. Besides decreased postoperative morbidity, LSN is an advantage with decreased analgesic requirements and convalescence. LSN is a highly stressful operation, and the procedure requires high concentration level and experience. Emotions recognized from Electroencephalogram (EEG) may lead to detect the real emotions of the human. In this study, we proposed a subject-dependent stress level detection from EEG using the (Fpz beta/alpha) ratio to recognize high and low dominance levels of feelings based on the 2D Valence-Arousal model. The stress level of the surgeon is monitored via EEG during the operation. The most stressful phase of LSN and its change over time are determined using wireless EEG headset with real-time measurements. The aim here is to monitor and utilize objective information on the mental effort and stress demanded.

Evaluation of elbow joint proprioception with RehabRoby: a pilot study

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the proprioceptive sense of elbow flexion through a robot-assisted rehabilitation system, RehabRoby, and to understand the usability of RehabRoby as a robotic system in physiotherapy. Methods: The study included 20 volunteer, healthy students studying either physiotherapy (PT) (5 females and 5 males) or electrical and electronics engineering (EEE) (5 females and 5 males). Using the RehabRoby, they were asked to flex their elbow joints in pronation actively and then against a comfortable resistance to the target angles (20o, 45o and 90o), with eyes open and closed. Angle of movement and applied torque for each target angle and error of movement with respect to the target angle (error of matching) were recorded as absolute values. Participants’ socio-demographic and physical features were also evaluated. Results: Physiotherapy students had less matching error at 45o with eyes opened than EEE students. A negative correlation was found between resistive elbow flexion and applied torque while eyes closed at 20o (p<0.05). Biceps brachii strength and being female were significant predictive factors for the least matching error in active elbow flexion at 20o with eyes closed. Error of matching at 45o without vision was lower in the PT group (-0.31) than in the EEE group (0.77). In addition, it was noticed that biceps brachii muscle strength played an important role in the proprioceptive sense of the motion at 20o. Conclusion: The RehabRoby can be considered a usable system for the evaluation of joint proprioception sense. With future validity studies, the RehabRoby may be used to assess, diagnose and improve the proprioceptive sense of patients.

Design of an admittance control with inner robust position control for a robot-assisted rehabilitation system RehabRoby

In recent years, robot-assisted rehabilitation systems have become an active research area to quantitatively monitor and adapt to patient progress, and to ensure consistency during the rehabilitation. In this work, an exoskeleton type robot-assisted rehabilitation system called RehabRoby is developed for rehabilitation purposes. An admittance control with inner robust position control loop has been used to control the robot-assisted rehabilitation system RehabRoby. Real-time experiments are performed to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed admittance control with inner robust position control loop.