Manuel Rodrigues Quintas

Instrumented glove for rehabilitation exercises

This work describes an instrumented glove suitable for the rehabilitation of patients that show movement limitations after suffering a stroke. This instrumented glove uses angular position sensors to measure rotation of each joint of each finger and pressure sensors to monitor the pressure applied on each fingertip. Each finger also has a vibration motor and an indicator LED to provide a stimulus during rehabilitation exercises. The glove communicates via Serial Peripheral Interface protocol (SPI) with an HMI module where a graphical application was developed in order to monitor each finger and to implement rehabilitation game-like exercises. Nonetheless, this device has the capability to monitor and record the sensor data during the implemented exercises for further data analysis.

Wireless control and network management of door locks

This demo exemplifies the use of different wireless protocols, such as BLE and NFC, to manage and control multiple door locks. Each lock is able to transfer data to a router through a wireless protocol, MiWi™. The latter is connected trough an Ethernet network to a computer that manages the permissions for each lock, logging all the events.

Online experimentation: Experiment@Portugal 2012

Online experimentation comprises remote and virtual experimentation aided by virtual reality components, augmented reality, sensorial devices, live videos and other tools as interactive videos and serious games which promote user immersion in virtual environments recreating the real experience. Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) has recognized in online experimentation its credits with relevance in todays education as future pillars in industry, in research and in medicine either in training or in specific applications. The Portuguese consortium of online experimentation, created in 2011, is now potentiated by some additional resources of online experimentation based in new different technologies and contributing for STEM, higher education, lifelong learning and dissemination. In a continuous effort the Portuguese Consortium has been supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The present work pretends to make a follow up of these developments in the context of the Experiment@Portugal 2012 project.

Pneumatic Driven Device for Integration into Robotic Finishing Applications

The use of robots in industrial applications has been widespread from handling tasks to processes. The finishing processes include operations such as deburring, grinding and polishing. Within these processes, there is a need to control the contact force between the workpiece and the robot. The force control can be implemented in a passive or active form, either in the robot arm or with an external device. This paper presents the development of a device to be used in robotic finishing applications. It provides a semi-active system that limits and maintains the contact force and is used in conjunction with the robot controller. The device uses a pneumatic driven linear axis fitted with a position sensor. The architecture of the developed system and experimental results regarding the performance of the built prototype are presented. The implementation of different control strategies to adjust the robot path velocity are proposed and discussed.

Simple and achievable educational projects by interconnecting different integrated circuits

This paper aims to illustrate the relevance and interest in using and teaching microcontrollers to the automation field students in a Mechanical Engineering Master Degree. It also describes examples of hands-on activity based in real world and carried out in the classroom in connection with the digital control of electronic systems, devices and processes. The microcontrollers are programmable integrated circuits incorporating a processor, memories and input/output peripherals. Through their use it is possible to design professional and educational systems with a small number of components, as in the case of the provided examples in the present work.

Virtual instrumentation for a new health care device

Nowadays, the assessment of body composition by estimating the percentage of body fat has a great impact in many fields such as nutrition, health, sports, chronic diseases and others. The main purpose for this work is to demonstrate the development of a Virtual Instrument that permits more effective assessment of body fat, automatic data processing, recording results and storage in a database, with high potential to conduct new studies.

Monitoring system for cold storages

This work describes a monitoring system for cold storages that includes: temperature, relative humidity, electric power and the state of the access door. It is compliant with ISO 12830 Class 1: capable of measuring temperature from -20 to 60°C and humidity up to 100%RH. This system is a complete monitoring, logging and alarm generation solution whose capability was tested in real-life applications.

1 DOF haptic device for online experimentation

This work describes a Demo to be presented in the Demo Session at exp.at15, related to a DIY Kit system of 1 Degree Of Freedom (DOF) to be used for interacting with virtual reality (VR) applications of simple models. The DIY Kit system and the VR applications to be downloaded by the user are available at the web page: http://onlinelab.fe.up.pt/vr_exp.html.

Triceps skinfold time response and compressibility

Background: The transition from high school to college is a critical period for weight gain that corresponds to a decline in healthy behaviors. Thus, understanding the characteristics of college freshmen is needed for designing interventions to target this population. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between anthropometric measures, physical activity (PA), and eating habits in college students. Methods: Participants (N=53) were full time, first semester, female college students between the ages of 18 and 22 years old, who lived on campus and were enrolled in an obesity intervention program. At baseline, participants completed anthropometric measures (body mass index (BMI), 3-site skinfold assessment (triceps, suprailiac, and thigh), and waist circumference) and questionnaires related to their PA and eating habits. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients (r) were computed among the following variables: BMI, skinfold sum (mm), waist circumference (cm), PA (METminutes/week), and the healthy eating habits scale of a health behavior survey. Results: BMI, skinfold sum, and waist circumference were all highly correlated to each other (r≥ .8, po .001), however, none of these measures were significantly correlated to PA or the healthy eating habits scale. Furthermore, PA and the healthy eating habits scale were not significantly correlated to each other. Conclusions: Desirable anthropometric measures in female college freshmen were no more associated with healthy behaviors than in same aged peers with undesirable measures. Health behavior interventions in college students should target individuals among the entire spectrum of body composition, and not just those classified as “at risk” based on their anthropometric measures. Disclosure: The authors declared no competing interests.

Adding sensorial capabilities to the augmented chemical reactions application

This work intends to describe and demonstrate a haptic prototype specifically developed to work with the software application Augmented Chemical Reactions. The main goal of the application and the additional sensorial device is to improve the user immersion in chemistry learning by offering 3D molecules visualization, on a monitor, by using augmented reality technology. The application allows students to manipulate the molecules using patterns for the interface instead of the common mouse and keyboard interface.