Design of a new transformation device for a tip seat for multifunctional public transportation

Tribus b.v. is a company in Utrecht that converts minibuses for multifunctional public transportation. This means that with the same bus both ambulant people and wheelchair occupants can be transported. The multifunctionality lies in the combination of a flexible floor layout and (tip) seats. The floor system is based on separate aluminium...

Nonlinear arm responses to continuous and pulse-shaped force perturbations

This study quantifies and explores the nonlinearities of human arm responses to large force perturbations while subjects (n=10) performed either a position or relax task. Continuous perturbations with large variations of amplitude levels (RMS values of 2.5, 7.5, 22.5 mm displacements) and pulse perturbations with large amplitudes (average of 16...

Accelerating flat reinforcement learning on a robot by using subgoals in a hierarchical framework

Learning a motor skill task with Reinforcement Learning still takes a long time. A way to speed up the learning process with- out using much prior knowledge is to use sub-goals. In this study, the use of subgoals decreased the learning time by a factor nine and we show that tests on a real robot give similar results. The price to be paid, in...