Ilaria Bortone

A wearable fingertip haptic device with 3 DoF asymmetric 3-RSR kinematics

A novel wearable haptic device for modulating skin stretch at the fingertip is presented. Rendering of skin stretch in 3 degrees of freedom (DoF), with contact - no contact capabilities, was implemented through rigid parallel kinematics. The novel asymmetrical three revolute-spherical-revolute (3-RSR) configuration allowed compact dimensions with minimum encumbrance of the hand workspace and minimum inter-finger interference. A differential method for solving the non-trivial inverse kinematics is proposed and implemented in real time for controlling the position of the skin tactor. Experiments involving the grasping of a virtual object were conducted using two devices (thumb and index fingers) in a group of 4 subjects: results showed that participants performed the grasping task more precisely and with grasping forces closer to the expected natural behavior when the proposed device provided haptic feedback.

A 3-RSR Haptic Wearable Device for Rendering Fingertip Contact Forces

A novel wearable haptic device for modulating contact forces at the fingertip is presented. Rendering of forces by skin deformation in three degrees of freedom (DoF), with contact—no contact capabilities, was implemented through rigid parallel kinematics. The novel asymmetrical three revolute-spherical-revolute (3-RSR) configuration allowed compact dimensions with minimum encumbrance of the hand workspace. The device was designed to render constant to low frequency deformation of the fingerpad in three DoF, combining light weight with relatively high output forces. A differential method for solving the non-trivial inverse kinematics is proposed and implemented in real time for controlling the device. The first experimental activity evaluated discrimination of different fingerpad stretch directions in a group of five subjects. The second experiment, enrolling 19 subjects, evaluated cutaneous feedback provided in a virtual pick-and-place manipulation task. Stiffness of the fingerpad plus device was measured and used to calibrate the physics of the virtual environment. The third experiment with 10 subjects evaluated interaction forces in a virtual lift-and-hold task. Although with different performance in the two manipulation experiments, overall results show that participants better controlled interaction forces when the cutaneous feedback was active, with significant differences between the visual and visuo-haptic experimental conditions.

A Novel Approach in Combination of 3D Gait Analysis Data for Aiding Clinical Decision-Making in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

The most common methods used by neurologist to evaluate Parkinson’s Disease (PD) patients are rating scales, that are affected by subjective and non-repeatable observations. Since several research studies have revealed that walking is a sensitive indicator

Social Robots in Postural Education: A New Approach to Address Body Consciousness in ASD Children

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) represent one of the most prevalent developmental disorders among children with different level of impairments in social relationships, communication and imagination. In addition, impaired movement is also observed in individuals with ASD and recent studies consider this factor as a limitation for fully engagement in the social environment. In the present work, we propose a new approach to promote postural education in autistic children with the involvement of a humanoid social robot and the therapist in a triadic interaction environment to better understand their motor development and body consciousness.

Serious Game and Wearable Haptic Devices for Neuro Motor Rehabilitation of Children with Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders that affect the development of movement and posture, resulting in limited activities. To optimize pediatric neuro-rehabilitation and to complement conventional occupational therapies, serious game based therapies for upper limb (UL) rehabilitation have been developed or adapted for the pediatric field during recent years. In this work, we present the design and development of UL rehabilitation scenario for CP patients, based on Serious Games (SG) and enhanced by immersive virtual reality (VR) with haptic feedback to increase engagement and provide rich, congruent multi-sensory feedback during virtual interaction.

Assistive Robot, RGB-D Sensor and Graphical User Interface to Encourage Communication Skills in ASD Population

The main feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) is the difficulty in communicating with others and struggling to maintain a functional contact with the environment. This work presents the implementation of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Digital PECS Therapy that will enable ASD population to overcome their impairments. The GUI was integrated with a depth sensor, to recognize hand gestures of autistic subjects, a monitor, where specific tools have been displayed, and a humanoid robot (Aldebaran Robotics NAO), used as a medium that will allow people with ASD to communicate their needs. Subjects can select the displayed pictures they want with hand movements, and the robot pronounces the represented objects. The system has been validated during therapeutic sessions with autistic subjects and the results are here reported and discussed supporting the idea that the presence of the robot helps to elicit triadic interactions in ASD.

A two-stage approach to bring the postural assessment to masses: The KISS-Health Project

The human body is in a posture every minute of every day: it can be static, such as when resting, or dynamic, such as when walking. It is quite frequent that people assume poor postures during the day and they make their bodies more susceptible to injuries. Considering this, prevention assumes a central role as it can avoid damage and pain in day-to-day life, but it is very poorly practiced in the majority of countries, even in the Western world. Moreover, diagnosis and assessments for postural abnormalities are demanded to few specialized centers, which usually perform anecdotal or subjective evaluations. In this paper, we propose an innovative model to face up to postural abnormalities starting from a two-stage approach that have been conceived and are being implemented by the KISS-Health Project. The idea consists of two units: a) the Mobile Diagnostic System, which is composed of both hardware and software components and it will permit a first assessment of human posture in order to identify people at risk; b) the Laboratory Diagnostic System, which will investigate more accurately the complete postural configuration of the subject going under exam. It is our goal to promote an integrated approach that, based on scientific and economical evidences, will reduce the costs related to postural abnormalities.

Gait Analysis and Parkinson’s Disease: Recent Trends on Main Applications in Healthcare

There is an increasing interest in the use of Gait Analysis (GA) in Parkinson’s Disease (PD), however no one has previously investigated what are the principal trends on the main applications of quantitative GA in studies involving this neurological disorder. We performed a systematically literature search for articles published through 2013 to present using three electronic databases. We retrieved 76 articles that met the inclusion criteria and identified four main research areas which refers to GA for: pathophysiological mechanisms underlying PD; assessment tool for treatment outcomes; automatic recognition of PD symptoms and algorithms for classification between PD patients and healthy subjects.

A fully immersive VR-based haptic feedback system for size measurement in inspection tasks using 3D point clouds

This paper proposes a size measurement system to be used in inspection tasks, based on the integration of fully immersive Virtual Reality visualization and haptic feedback at fingertip level. In particular, index finger and thumb are intuitively used to perform metric measurement on 3D point clouds visualized using a stereo vision Head Mounted Display. The haptic feedback consisting of contact transition and forces rendered at the fingertip is used to facilitate the user in the measurement task. Experimental results show similar performance of subjects in accomplishing the inspection task with and without the support of haptic feedback in terms of time and precision of measurements. However, qualitative questionnaire responses suggest a significant preference of subjects in using immersive environment enriched by haptic feedback.

The PoSE Project: An Innovative Approach to Promote Healthy Postures in Schoolchildren

Back pain in children and adolescents is quite common, so developing preventive strategies for back pain is highly desirable. This article describes a planned school-based postural education project (PoSE) to promote healthy behaviors among middle school students and their families and to moderate postural diseases. As first step, we evaluated which aspects of postural behaviors were integrated in children’s lifestyle through a questionnaire. Then, the educational program consisted of interactive lessons on back posture and good principles both in class and at home. The strength of the participatory approach used in this study lies in the contribution to empowerment social change.