Eugenio Guglielmelli

Robotics for medical applications

The authors review the most important past and ongoing research projects in macro-robotics, micro-robotics and bio-robotics, three general areas of robotics which have the potential to provide significant improvements to the state of the art of medical technology. A brief analysis of the economic potentialities of robotics in medicine is also provided.

Humanoids and personal robots: Design and experiments

This paper addresses the field of humanoid and personal robotics—its objectives, motivations, and technical problems. The approach described in the paper is based on the analysis of humanoid and personal robots as an evolution from industrial to advanced and service robotics driven by the need for helpful machines, as well as a synthesis of the dream of replicating humans. The first part of the paper describes the development of anthropomorphic components for humanoid robots, with particular regard to anthropomorphic sensors for vision and touch, an eight-d.o.f. arm, a three-fingered hand with sensorized fingertips, and control schemes for grasping. Then, the authors propose a user-oriented design methodology for personal robots, and describe their experience in the design, development, and validation of a real personal robot composed of a mobile unit integrating some of the anthropomorphic components introduced previously and aimed at operating in a distributed working environment. Based on the analysis of experimental results, the authors conclude that humanoid robotics is a tremendous and attractive technical and scientific challenge for robotics research. The real utility of humanoids has still to be demonstrated, but personal assistance can be envisaged as a promising application domain. Personal robotics also poses difficult technical problems, especially related to the need for achieving adequate safety, proper human–robot interaction, useful performance, and affordable cost. When these problems are solved, personal robots will have an excellent chance for significant application opportunities, especially if integrated into future home automation systems, and if supported by the availability of humanoid robots.

BioMechatronic Design and Control of an Anthropomorphic Artificial Hand for Prosthetics and Robotic Applications

The paper proposes a biomechatronic approach to the design of an anthropomorphic artificial hand. The hand is conceived to be applied to prosthetics and biomedical robotics; hence, anthropomorphism is a fundamental requirement to be addressed both in the physical aspect and in the functional behavior. As regards the hand mechanics, a cable-driven underactuation is proposed in order to enlighten the structure, allow anthropomorphic self-adaptation to the object to be grasped, and simplify the control. Two simple PD control systems are formulated and evaluated in a common task of grasping a cylindrical object. The reference input for the control is derived from data on human subjects performing the same task and extracted by the literature. The paper reports simulation results about the comparison with the human case when both control systems are used to close the finger, so to derive specific indications for the improvement of the hand design

A low-cost, composite sensor array combining ultrasonic and infrared proximity sensors

In this paper we describe our approach to the design of proximity sensor arrays. Each sensing element of the proximity sensor array is a composite sensor, i.e. a sensor which is composed of an in-air ultrasonic rangefinder and an infrared detector. This sensor arrangement is capable, in principle, to achieve a perception of the explored objects that is not necessarily limited to their geometrical properties (size, shape and location relative to the sensor); possibly, the perception can be extended to other relevant features. In this paper, we show that, in principle, a sort of perception of the surface reflectance (the color) is achievable. The concept of the proposed sensor array spans a wide range of potential applications in flexible industrial automation, service robotics and autonomous mobility. The system described, in particular, is intended for providing an advanced wheelchair with the navigational capabilities required for improving the driving skills of disabled users.

Robotics in medicine

This paper reports the current state-of-the-art in medical robotics. Three general areas of advanced robotics are identified: macro robotics, micro robotics and bio-robotics. Macro robotics include the development of robots, wheelchairs, manipulators for rehabilitation as well as new more powerful tools and techniques for surgery. Micro robotics could contribute to the field of minimally invasive surgery as well as to the development of a new generation of miniaturised mechatronic tools for conventional surgery. Bio-robotics deals with the problems of modelling and simulating biological systems in order to provide a better understanding of human physiology. According to this classification, a review on the most important past and ongoing research projects in the field is reported. Some commercial products already appeared on the marker are also mentioned, and a brief analysis of the economical potentialities of robotics in medicine is presented.<<ETX>>

Robot assistants : Applications and evolution

Abstract Service robots are machines designed to work not onlyfor human beings (like the industrial robot) butalso with human beings. In addition to challenging technical problems, the application of service robots in real-life situations requires to address intriguing issues concerning their interactions with humans. We are investigating both types of problems with reference to three different case studies and real research projects: a mobile robot system primarily aimed at the assistance of patients in hospitals and institutions (the “URMAD” project); a mobile robot system for the assistance to the disabled and the elderly at home (the “MOVAID” project); and a wheelchair incorporating a robot arm (the “IMMEDIATE” project). The paper discusses the design of the three robotic systems as well as their practical implementation and preliminary experimental results. Finally, the paper addresses recent results which could lead to the implementation of cybernetic prostheses, that is devices which would ultimately allow to achieve real intimate physical symbiosis between human beings and artificial robotic devices.

A Novel Procedure for In-field Calibration of Sourceless Inertial/Magnetic Orientation Tracking Wearable Devices

Recent research in the emerging field of phenomics aims at developing unobtrusive and ecological technologies which allow monitoring the behavior of infants and toddlers. Orientation tracking devices based on accelerometers and magnetometers represent a very promising technology since orientation in 3D space can be derived by solely relying upon the direction of the natural geomagnetic and gravitational fields which constitute an absolute coordinate frame of reference, i.e. sourceless. Many commercially available devices allow on-board calibration by means of addition of external circuitry, mainly used to generate artificial fields which act on the sensor itself as a known forcing input. Addition of external circuits is a major drawback in applications such as the one of interest, where the technology has to be worn by infants. When external fields, (e.g. gravitational and geomagnetic fields) are present, alternative calibration techniques are possible which rely on predefined orientation sequences of the sensor. In standard procedures, prior knowledge of the external field (magnitude and direction) as well as accuracy in performing the predefined orientation sequences contribute to determine the calibration parameters. In this work, a novel procedure for in-field calibration of magnetometric sensors is presented which does not rely on previous knowledge of magnitude and direction of the geomagnetic field and which does not require accurately predefined orientation sequences. Such a method proves especially useful in clinical applications since the clinician is no longer compelled to execute accurate calibration protocols

Sensors and actuators for 'humanoid' robots

Though much research is still necessary before a personal robot with anthropomorphic features becomes a full reality, accessible and appealing to the general user, present technology is able to off...

A novel technological approach towards the early diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders

In this work, a novel technological approach to the early diagnosis of neuro-developmental disorders is presented. Disorders such as Autism are typically diagnosed after language development, i.e. after the 2–3 years of age. In this paper, three different typologies of instruments are presented which are designed to assess infants behavior in different perceptual and motor domains. The first is an instrumented toy embedding kinematic and force sensors for studying grasping and manipulation in infants as young as 6 months old. The second is a wearable device for sensing the kinematics of the upper and lower limbs of infants, designed to assess spontaneous movements in premature babies. The third is a multimodal audio-visuo-vestibular cap which was designed to assess infants orienting behaviors in social situations in response to audio and visual stimuli.

GIVING-A-HAND system: The development of a task-specific robot appliance

The rapidly changing demographics in industrialized nations create a pressing need for effective personal assistive aids that appeal to elderly and disabled users. Our goal is to design robotic aids that are not only affordable and commercially viable but also have universal appeal and benefit. To do so, we explore the creation of the robot appliance, a personal robotic aid with the ability to function within a localized assistive system in a specific environment within the home such as the kitchen. This chapter presents our concept of the robot appliance and details of one of two design studies involving our concept for task-specific, robotic aids. We discuss the GIVING-A-HAND system concept and the results of interviews with elderly and medium-to-high disabled persons that prioritized and refined requirements for the robotic appliance component of the system: a small, counter-top mobile robot, Addams Hand that users can remotely control to interact with common kitchen appliances to perform fetch-and-carry tasks.