Workspace Extension in Shoulder Elevation/-Protraction Actuated, By-Wire Controlled Grasping and Squeezing in a Virtual Environment

Many users of body-powered upper extremity prostheses experience difficulties using their device and a large group abandons usage altogether. Shoulder control via Bowden cable is widely used because of the intuitive use and low cost, but requires large shoulder movements and high operating forces that, according to literature, often exceed the...

The impact of steering ratio variability to road profiles on driver acceptance and driving behaviour

Variable steering systems have the ability to change the ratio between the steering wheel and the front wheels while driving. These adjustable steering systems have led to an improvement in traffic and road safety and decrease in driver’s workload. A previous study concludes that driver steering behaviour is significantly dependent on vehicle...

Eliciting user engagement with a social robot: Drawing attention techniques for Pepper

The elicitation of user engagement is one of the current challenges of human-robot interaction, alongside with the identification of appropriate metrics to evaluate users' experience. Several studies focused on strategies aimed at maintaining engagement throughout an interaction, but limited research has been done on how to initiate it by...

The vestibular drive for standing balance control is dependent on sensory cues of gravity

By monitoring head movement and orientation in space, the vestibular system can evoke appropriate muscle responses in order to maintain standing balance. The present study investigates whether vestibular-evoked muscle responses are dependent on sensory cues of gravity by examining these responses across varying load and gravity conditions....

Pull-E- The assistive shopping trolley

The aging society puts an increasingly heavy demand on the health care system. Elderly often have difficulties in mobility, reducing opportunities for exercise and social interaction that activities like running errands or shopping normally offer. This thesis proposes a novel concept for an assistive motorised shopping trolley, called Pull-E....

Haptic Feedback in Master-Slave Robotic Laparoscopic Surgery

Commercially available laparoscopic surgical robots are not currently equipped with force feedback. This may lead to unnecessary tissue damage when gripping tissue in a laparascopic procedure, as shown in a prior literature study. The goal of this MSc thesis project is the implementation of haptic feedback in a prototype of a master-slave...