412 research outputs found
The Robot and Us: An'Antidisciplinary'Perspective on the Scientific and Social Impacts of Robotics
No full textThis book offers a clear, yet comprehensive overview of the role of robots in our society. It especially focuses on the interaction between humans and robots, and on the social and political aspects of the integration of robots with humans, in their everyday life, both in the private and working sphere alike. Based on the lessons held by the author at “Scuola di Politiche”(transl. School of Political Sciences), this self-contained book mainly addresses an educated, though not-specialist, audience
On the way to robotics
No full textI do not intend to describe the history of robotics and its literary origin, dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century, but I would like to trace the technological evolution of its applications, imagining a journey through time and space. My analysis strongly reflects my training as a bioengineer researcher who has always delved into the interaction between robotics and biomedicine. This is why I think it is useful to take a step back and describe my studies. I do not have a formal robotics background, also because at the end of the 80 s it was not yet a part of my future plans. As a scholar of physics, I learned and studied in research laboratories, in a “middle world”, on the border between microengineering, robotics and biomedical engineering and I think it is for these reasons that I have taken on board a research methodology oriented towards antidisciplinarity and guided by curiosity
Are we going through a real revolution?
No full textIt is not easy to understand if what we are experiencing is truly a new industrial revolution or a tail or a transformation of the previous one, the third revolution, which dates back to the late seventies and was originated by industrial automation, microelectronics and mechatronics. In an attempt to understand what is happening today in terms of the transformation of society and of the industrial revolution, it is necessary first of all to go back to the industrial revolutions, to their powerful impact on society, to the discontinuities that scientific discoveries and their subsequent transformation into technology and industry have produced over the years on society. This is not only on the manufacture of goods and services, but above all on the organization of work and on the quality of life
Our friend the robot
No full textWhenever I think of the future of robotics, what comes to mind is the image of a lady in her comfortable home in her unspecified city. She is quietly preparing a cake for a dinner that is coming up soon and is mixing the ingredients according to the recipe. This is not an unusual scene—rather it is both traditional and universal. It can take place in different parts of the planet, regardless of places and cultures. If we approach and observe well, however, we discover that the lady is not following a recipe book as my grandmother would have done, or a television program, as my mother would do today, or even using a smartphone with a trendy app, as my daughter normally does. On the contrary, the lady is talking with a kind of one-eyed table-top robotic lamp, whose head swivels, responds and follows the movements of her hands, measures the quantities of the ingredients, and corrects or suggests the actions to be carried out—how to mix, how to add more. It even praises or softly scolds if too many utensils are dirtied
Maxillo-facial fractures: diagnostic role of multiplanar and 3D TC imaging with multislice technique
No full textThe purpose of our research was to verify, in a selected series of 37 patients, not only the real validity of multislice CT employment with 2D and 3D reformatted images in pre-surgical evaluation, but also the real necessity to use this technique as elective methodological procedure for maxillo-facial fractures in emergency. Material and methods. 37 selected patients (24 males, 13 females), with age ranging from 17 to 63 years (mean age 33 years), underwent multislice CT examination at the casualty department of the hospital San Camillo of Rome, from October 2004 to March 2005. In all the patients the computed tomography was carried out with spiral technique (General Electric Light Speed - 8 crowns), using thin acquisition of 2.5 mm, with configuration of the eight detectors 8 x 1,25 or 8 x 2,25, with values of pitch equal to 1 (in some cases 1, according to thickness of the anatomical volume to appraise), with interval and thickness of retro-reconstruction respectively of 1 mm and of 1,25 mm. The parameters of exposure were: 280 mAs, 120 Kv and a time for total scanning of 10-15 sec. (for only maxillofacial structures). Results. The results of the study were: 7 out of 37 patients reproduced a facial smash, 26 out of 37 patients showed a complex fracture: 8 patients with a nasal-ethmoidalorbital fractures, 7 patients with a zygomatico-maxillary fracture, 5 patients with a nasal-maxillary fracture; 4 patients with a condylar or subcondylar fracture, 1 patient with multiple fracture of jaw, 1 patient with fracture of the orbital floor (blow out); and 4 patients showed a picture of malar fracture. On the total of the examined patients, 26 (70 %) showed solitary or multiple fractures of the orbital walls. In particular in 9 cases were found fractures of the orbital floor, of which 6 with sinking of bony fragments in the underlying maxillary sinus (blow out). The medial walls of the orbit were involved in the complex fractures in 7 cases. In 11 cases presented fractures of the orbital lateral walls. Discussion. The most important aspect emerged by this experience was the absence of patients in which the classical pattern of fracture, in accordance with the historical Le Fort classification, was reproduced faithfully, and the clean prevalence of complex fractures, that come out from the normal canons of classification. We wanted to underline the role of CT in the diagnosis in this type of fractures, and in particular of the spiral multislice technique, with axial volumetric thin acquisitions supplied with coronal/sagittal and 3D with volumetric rendering reconstructions. Conclusion. In comparison with the traditional CT examination that, in prevision of MPR and 3D reconstructions, results incompatible with the necessary time and accuracy request for emergency conditions, the spiral technique reduces drastically both the times and the radiant dose, allows to work in the phase of post-elaboration on the raw data of volumetric scanning, obtaining from the axial scans multiplanar and three-dimensional reconstructions of superior quality. Emphasis was placed also on the fact that the possibility to appraise the entity of the skeletal damages, the concomitant muscular lesions, of cerebral parenchyma and of the cervical rachis made this techniqueelective in this field. The MPR reconstructions hold particular importance because undoubtedly better underline the presence of suspected or badly definable lesions compared with axial scans and complete the diagnostic supply
Control of Multifunctional Prosthetic Hands by Processing the Electromyographic Signal
No full textThe human hand is a complex system, with a large number of degrees of freedom (DoFs), sensors embedded in its structure, actuators and tendons, and a complex hierarchical control. Despite this complexity, the efforts required to the user to carry out the different movements is quite small (albeit after an appropriate and lengthy training). On the contrary, prosthetic hands are just a pale replication of the natural hand, with significantly reduced grasping capabilities and no sensory information delivered back to the user. Several attempts have been carried out to develop multifunctional prosthetic devices controlled by electromyographic (EMG) signals (myoelectric hands), harness (kinematic hands), dimensional changes in residual muscles, and so forth, but none of these methods permits the "natural" control of more than two DoFs. This article presents a review of the traditional methods used to control artificial hands by means of EMG signal, in both the clinical and research contexts, and introduces what could be the future developments in the control strategy of these devices
A Biomimetic MEMS-based Tactile Sensor Array with Fingerprints integrated in a Robotic Fingertip for Artificial Roughness Encoding
No full textThis work shows the accomplishment of a full integration of a biomimetic 2 à 2 tactile array and related electronics in an artificial fingertip. The technological approach is based on merging 3D MEMS sensors and skin-like artificial materials that are moulded mimicking human epidermal ridges. Experimental results using a mechatronic tactile stimulator for indenting periodic gratings (spatial periodicity from 400 ¿m to 1900 ¿m) and sliding them at constant speeds (from 5 mm/s to 40 mm/s) under regulated normal contact forces (between 100 mN and 400 mN) show that the developed sensing technology is suitable for fine roughness encoding: a frequency shift of the principal spectral component arising from sensor outputs was observed coherently with the spatial periodicity of the used ridged stimuli and their sliding velocity. Such phenomenon is pointed out with fine gratings particularly when the stimulation is operated along the proximal-distal direction of the finger (i.e. with sliding motion of the ridges of the stimulus across the ridges of the packaging) showing a more marked frequency locked behavior if compared to the radial-ulnar stimulation (i.e. with sliding motion of the ridges of the grating along the ridges of the packaging)
On the control of multifunctional prosthetic hands by processing the electromyographic signal
No full textReal-time myoelectric control of a multi-fingered hand prosthesis using principal components analysis
No full textAbstract Background In spite of the advances made in the design of dexterous anthropomorphic hand prostheses, these sophisticated devices still lack adequate control interfaces which could allow amputees to operate them in an intuitive and close-to-natural way. In this study, an anthropomorphic five-fingered robotic hand, actuated by six motors, was used as a prosthetic hand emulator to assess the feasibility of a control approach based on Principal Components Analysis (PCA), specifically conceived to address this problem. Since it was demonstrated elsewhere that the first two principal components (PCs) can describe the whole hand configuration space sufficiently well, the controller here employed reverted the PCA algorithm and allowed to drive a multi-DoF hand by combining a two-differential channels EMG input with these two PCs. Hence, the novelty of this approach stood in the PCA application for solving the challenging problem of best mapping the EMG inputs into the degrees of freedom (DoFs) of the prosthesis. Methods A clinically viable two DoFs myoelectric controller, exploiting two differential channels, was developed and twelve able-bodied participants, divided in two groups, volunteered to control the hand in simple grasp trials, using forearm myoelectric signals. Task completion rates and times were measured. The first objective (assessed through one group of subjects) was to understand the effectiveness of the approach; i.e., whether it is possible to drive the hand in real-time, with reasonable performance, in different grasps, also taking advantage of the direct visual feedback of the moving hand. The second objective (assessed through a different group) was to investigate the intuitiveness, and therefore to assess statistical differences in the performance throughout three consecutive days. Results Subjects performed several grasp, transport and release trials with differently shaped objects, by operating the hand with the myoelectric PCA-based controller. Experimental trials showed that the simultaneous use of the two differential channels paradigm was successful. Conclusions This work demonstrates that the proposed two-DoFs myoelectric controller based on PCA allows to drive in real-time a prosthetic hand emulator into different prehensile patterns with excellent performance. These results open up promising possibilities for the development of intuitive, effective myoelectric hand controllers.</p
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