The emerging demographic trends toward an aging population, demand new ways and solutions to improve the quality of elderly life. These include, prolonged independent living, improved health care, and reduced social isolation. Recent technological advances in the field of assistive robotics bring higher sophistication and various assistive abilities that can help in achieving these goals. In this paper, we present design and validation of a low-cost telepresence robot that can assist the elderly and their professional caregivers, in everyday activities. The developed robot structure and its control objectives were tested in, both, a simulation and experimental environment. On-field experiments were done in a private elderly care center involving elderly persons and caregivers as participants. The goal of the evaluation study was to test the software architecture and the robot capabilities for navigation, as well as the robot manipulator. Moreover, participants' reactions toward a possible adoption of the developed robot system in everyday activities were assessed. The obtained results of the conducted evaluation study are also presented and discussed.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6412532 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s19040834 | DOI Listing |
J Comput Chem
January 2025
Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Napoli, Italy.
Light-driven molecular rotary motors are nanometric machines able to convert light into unidirectional motions. Several types of molecular motors have been developed to better respond to light stimuli, opening new avenues for developing smart materials ranging from nanomedicine to robotics. They have great importance in the scientific research across various disciplines, but a detailed comprehension of the underlying ultrafast photophysics immediately after photo-excitation, that is, Franck-Condon region characterization, is not fully achieved yet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Mater
January 2025
Division of Intelligent and Biomechanical Systems, State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Haidian, Beijing, 100084, China.
Quantitative assessment for post-stroke spasticity remains a significant challenge due to the encountered variable resistance during passive stretching, which can lead to the widely used modified Ashworth scale (MAS) for spasticity assessment depending heavily on rehabilitation physicians. To address these challenges, a high-force-output triboelectric soft pneumatic actuator (TENG-SPA) inspired by a lobster tail is developed. The bioinspired TENG-SPA can generate approximately 20 N at 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensors (Basel)
January 2025
School of Automation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
Transferring knowledge learned from standard GelSight sensors to other visuotactile sensors is appealing for reducing data collection and annotation. However, such cross-sensor transfer is challenging due to the differences between sensors in internal light sources, imaging effects, and elastomer properties. By understanding the data collected from each type of visuotactile sensors as domains, we propose a few-sample-driven style-to-content unsupervised domain adaptation method to reduce cross-sensor domain gaps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSensors (Basel)
December 2024
IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, 20148 Milan, Italy.
Background: Wearable powered exoskeletons could be used to provide robotic-assisted gait training (RAGT) in people with stroke (PwST) and walking disability. The study aims to compare the differences in cardiac function, fatigue, and workload during activities of daily living (ADLs), while wearing an exoskeleton.
Methods: Five PwST were recruited in this pilot cross-sectional study.
Sensors (Basel)
December 2024
Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems of the Education Ministry of China, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.
Six degrees of freedom (6-DoF) object pose estimation is essential for robotic grasping and autonomous driving. While estimating pose from a single RGB image is highly desirable for real-world applications, it presents significant challenges. Many approaches incorporate supplementary information, such as depth data, to derive valuable geometric characteristics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!