Forces in needle interventions: Measuring tip forces

Accurate positioning of the needle tip during insertion is essential to ensure a maximum effect of the treatment. Target error is a problem and a lot research fields aim to improve needle insertions. The possibility to measure cutting force and stiffness force separately from friction forces supports the development of new types of needles,...

Driver Steering Support Interfaces Near the Vehicle’s Handling Limits

The goal of this thesis is to propose steering support systems that can reduce the driver’s control effort, mental load and promote safety. The driver dictates the vehicle’s motion and the support should centralize him/her in the control loop; thus our design philosophy is to increase driver’s responsibility and support him/her in the sense of...

Force and pressure feedback during epidural needle insertion in the ligamentum flavum of piglets.

Epidural anesthesia is a commonly used anesthesia method during surgery or giving birth to a child. During the insertion of the needle in the back of the patient, the anesthetist has to interpret the different forces which requires extensive skills. To obtain these skills the residents train on patients, which is not without risk. Due to a lot...

Haptic shared control: Smoothly shifting control authority?

Literature points to persistent issues in humanautomation interaction, which are caused either when the human does not understand the automation or when the automation does not understand the human. Design guidelines for human-automation interaction aim to avoid such issues and commonly agree that the human should have continuous interaction and...

The effect of offering Natural Force Feedback and Haptic Shared Control on Rate and Force Control of a Deep Sea Mining Suspended Grab

Experimental research with human subjects on the effect of offering different types of haptic feedback to improve the human performance during a deep-sea mining task using a suspended grab.

Suturing intraabdominal organs: When do we cause tissue damage?

It is generally assumed that safety of tissue manipulations during (laparoscopic) surgery is related to the magnitude of force that is exerted on the tissue. To provide trainees with performance feedback about tissuehandling skills, it is essential to define objective criteria for judging the safety of applied forces. To be of clinical relevance...

Visual force feedback in laparoscopic training

Background - To improve endoscopic surgical skills, an increasing number of surgical residents practice on box or virtual reality (VR) trainers. Current training is focused mainly on hand–eye coordination. Training methods that focus on applying the right amount of force are not yet available. Methods - The aim of this project is to develop a...

Improving the Quality of Haptic Feedback Yields Only Marginal Improvements in Teleoperated Task Performance

In teleoperations, haptic feedback allows the human operator to touch the remote environment. Yet it is only partially understood to what extent the quality of haptic feedback contributes to human-in-the-loop task performance. This paper presents a human factors experiment in which telemanipulated task performance is assessed for three stages of...

Force measurement platform for training and assessment of laparoscopic skills

Background - To improve endoscopic surgical skills, an increasing number of surgical residents practice on box or virtual-reality (VR) trainers. Current training is mainly focused on hand–eye coordination. Training methods that focus on applying the right amount of force are not yet available. Methods - The aim of this project is to develop a...

A rigorous model of reflex function indicates that position and force feedback are flexibly tuned to position and force tasks

This study aims to quantify the separate contributions of muscle force feedback, muscle spindle activity and co-contraction to the performance of voluntary tasks (‘‘reduce the influence of perturbations on maintained force or position’’). Most human motion control studies either isolate only one contributor, or assume that relevant reflexive...

Haptic Interface for UAV Teleoperation

In the teleoperation of an uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV), the human operator is physically separated from the vehicle and lacks various multiple-sensory information such as sound, motions, and vibrations of the airframe. The operator is usually only provided with visual information, e.g., from camera images with limited resolution and field...

Fundamentals of ergonomic exoskeleton robots

This thesis is the first to provide the fundamentals of ergonomic exoskeleton design. The fundamental theory as well as technology necessary to analyze and develop ergonomic wearable robots interacting with humans is established and validated by experiments and prototypes. The fundamentals are (1) a new theoretical framework for analyzing...

Force feedback and basic laparoscopic skills

Background - Not much is known about the exact role offorce feedback in laparoscopy. This study aimed to determine whether force feedback influences movements of instruments during training in laparoscopic tasks and whether force feedback is required for training in basic laparoscopic force application tasks. Methods - A group of 19 gynecologic...

A Two-Dimensional Weighting Function for a Driver Assistance System

Driver assistance systems that supply force feedback (FF) on the accelerator commonly use relative distance and velocity with respect to the closest lead vehicle in front of the own vehicle. This 1-D feedback might not accurately represent the situation and can cause unwanted step-shaped changes in the FFs during lateral maneuvers. To address...

A Two-Dimensional Weighting Function for a Driver Assistance System

Driver assistance systems that supply force feedback (FF) on the accelerator commonly use relative distance and velocity with respect to the closest lead vehicle in front of the own vehicle. This 1-D feedback might not accurately represent the situation and can cause unwanted step-shaped changes in the FFs during lateral maneuvers. To address...

Friction dynamics of trocars

Force-directed design of a voluntary closing hand prosthesis

This paper presents the design of a body-powered voluntary closing prosthetic hand. It is argued that the movement of the fingers before establishing a grip is much less relevant for good control of the object held than the distribution of forces once the object has been contacted. Based on this notion, the configurations of forces on the...