Radek Doskocil

Wearable systems for monitoring the health condition of soldiers: Review and application

From the second half of the 1990s, thanks to more affordable and more powerful technology and systems for recording based on miniaturized sensors, we can observe a more intensive development of a system that monitors the physical and psychological conditions of soldiers. Systems for measuring of physical and medical data for the diagnostics of physical and psychological state has significantly spread. This study, however, examines the current technologies and usage of the wearable monitoring systems in military. The article can serve as a guide for choosing suitable and affordable systems of quantitative evaluation of physical and psychological conditions of soldiers. In addition, the innovative telemetry monitoring system (FlexiGuard system) composed of appropriate sensors is introduced. Based on previous researches and tests, FlexiGuard system and its sensors are recommended for use in military practice.

UAV assisted landing on moving UGV

The paper presents a method to assist the landing of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) on a moving Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV). The measurement of the relative position of the UAV and the UGV is carried out by a cheap USB camera. The paper deals with the list of the difficulties of such a system which have to be taken into account and develop ideas on how to overcome them. The solution of the key problems is implemented and tested by experiments.

Contribution to Determination of Target Angular Position by Single Visual Camera at Indoor Close Environs

This paper is a follow-up to issued results of the Research Intention at the Department of Air Defence Systems that were performed and published in period 2011 and 2013. The paper deals with practical experiments which have been performed in order to bring some evidences about possibilities estimating angular positions of the stationary target by using visual odometry. The single visual camera and the target have been used to estimate angular position and angle of rotation of the target in the laboratory conditions at short distances. Mainly the paper describes the results of performed experiments and possibilities reduction of errors caused by optical system of camera (e.g. field deflection).

Evaluation Methodology and Measurement of Physiological Data to Determine Operational Preparedness of Air Defense Staff: Preliminary Results

The aim of the article is to introduce new evaluation methodology to determine operational preparedness of air defense staff based on measurement of physiological data. The individuals working with air defense systems are under very high level of stress and long‐term monotone air picture observation workload during the mission. We designed an experiment and a method of measuring the biomedical signals for monitoring the actual operator condition during long‐term work on air picture simulator that shows real‐time aircraft flight information. Long‐term monitoring and recording of potential airborne targets in the area of interest to which operators are subjected is accompanied by monitoring the physiological data such as heart rate, body temperature, movement activity and perspiration intensity of operators. The proposed methodology and measurements were tested on four air defense system operators of the Army of the Czech Republic. Operators took part in a 4‐h intensive measurement without any break and their training was evaluated. Designed methods could help to monitor, on the base of physiological data and data from simulators, the stress load level and operational preparedness.

Quantifying Movement of the Head and Shoulders During Quiet Standing Using MatLab Software and Promising Parameters

In this paper, we describe a method for quantifying movement of the head and shoulders during quiet standing. The method proposed allows for the determination of postural stability of the head and shoulders, especially during the Romberg’s test, by recording the relative angular movements. The proposed software is used to calculate new parameters of the head and shoulder movements. These parameters are: the area of the confidence ellipse of the inclination of the head versus the inclination of the shoulders and the area of the confidence ellipse of the head rotation versus the shoulder rotation, the size of the main and minor axis of the confidence ellipse of the inclination of the head versus the inclination of the shoulders and the size of the main and minor axes of the confidence ellipse of the head rotation versus the shoulder rotation. The proposed method was implemented using MatLab software. To test this method, we compared the movements of the fourteen healthy subjects/volunteers and nine patients with an inner ear viral infection. Based on the data results, we identified that the parameters can be used to evaluate postural stability in neurology.

Semiportable Manually Actuated System for Measuring Muscle Spasticity

In the article, we describe a design of a new system which provides means to quantitatively assess passive resistance of skeletal muscles, also termed muscle spasticity. New design is focused on the measurement of muscle groups which are responsible for movement of elbow joint. The semiportable system is an alternative to expensive motorized isokinetic dynamometers. System is manually actuated dynamometer. The electronic subsystem of the system is used to measure angular velocity and torque in the elbow joint. An incremental encoder is used for the measurement of angular velocity. The angular velocity of the rotational movement in a joint is a result of movement effected by manually controlled lever. The lever is controlled by a physician. During the angular movement of the upper limb segments, the elbow joint torque is measured by a strain gauge subsystem. The output from the system is a graphic dependence between the angular velocity and the torque, which is used to evaluate spasticity. The dependence between the passive moment of force and kinematic angular parameters allows us to study complex motion and force possibilities of the joint. The designed system could be useable and widely applicable in clinical practice, as well as research of diseases and treatment of musculoskeletal system.

P 160 - Non-linear analysis of trunk movement of air defense staff: Pilot study

Measurements of acceleration of a persons body segment by wearable MoCap system is one of the most important tool to investigate a movement activity. However, the aim of our study is to assess the ability of the trunk movement activity assessment by non-linear method to identify and differences in traffic density and hours of shift work. Poincaré plot with five minute intervals in four hour length data was used to calculate the standard deviations SD1 and SD2. Also, air traffic density with five minute intervals in four hour length data was calculated. The results show that SD1 reflects the short-term variability, and SD2 reflects both short-term and long-term variability. The statistically significant differences found on SD1 values of different hours is the most important finding and indicates that the short-term variability of trunk movement activity is changing during hours of shift work. On the other hand, the traffic density does not have influence on SD. An explanation for this is that motion activity does not change with higher workload, but longer work activity does. Therefore, these findings and the proposed method can be used to optimize the duration of work shifts and working breaks of Air Defense Staff members.

Measurement and Modelling of the Behavior of Military Pilots

A military pilot fulfilling his mission can often be caught in precarious situations and put under extreme strain. The aim of this article is to describe the current development of systems and methods for measuring and modelling military pilot’s behavior. The first part of this paper outlines the systems and methods for measuring and evaluation of physical and medical data needed to describe the condition and behavior of military pilots quantitatively. The second part focuses on an expert system approach to modelling military pilot behavior. The authors demonstrate, how the modules of the system were created and how measurements and tests were performed. The research findings outline the new expert system modelling military pilot’s behavior. Moreover, subsystems and sensors applied in the cockpit so that the system as a whole can support the pilot, are described. The complete system is able to determine the pilot’s stress load, along with physical and visual load levels. Based on this knowledge, it is possible to determine whether the pilot needs the support of the automatic flight control system. This system can be also be used in the flight control system and can increase battle effectiveness of the deployed aircrafts.

Indirect method to estimate distance measurement based on single visual cameras

In this paper, we proposed an indirect method to measure the distance of an object accurately by single visual cameras using triangulation. The object can be seen as the third point of a triangle with two known sides and one known angle. Distance to object can be determined indirectly on the base of known sides and angle, rather than being measured directly. It would be very useful in case there is no line of sight to object (inaccessible) or an obstacle interrupts it. Furthermore, the results show that the measured distance using the indirect method has a less measurement error than the one using the direct method. This method establishes a basis for the implementation of the position algorithm into the navigation subsystem of swarm robots and will be very helpful especially in robot cooperation.

Methods of Motion Data Analysis of Animal’s Body on Rotating Platform

The article introduces methods of data analysis and new parameters for evaluating angular movement response of animals to changes in their body orientation in 3-D space. The motion capture system of rotating platform offering a record of anatomical angles of head movements and angles of the movement of platform. The calculation of parameters has been implemented in MatLab sw. Methods have been tested for quantitative evaluating head angular movements of reptiles and amphibians. Parameters are based on evaluation of time domain data and relationship between measured variables. New parameters include: correlation coefficient between the angle of platform movement and the angle of head movement, variance of the angle of head movement, the angle between the line of the angle values of head movement and platform movement, the inclination angle of angle-angle diagram. The assumption is the application of methods for studying the evolution of nervous system.