Bathroom cleaning is one of the troublesome daily issues. All kinds of contaminants on the bathroom floor take people a lot of time and effort to deal with. With the development of computational technologies, smart products are gradually entering into our lives to solve these troublesome issues. Therefore, there is a chance to use new technologies to solve the bathroom floor cleaning problem and to make life convenient. Obviously, different people have different attitudes towards smart products, which influence their preferences on interacting with smart products. Based on my personal experience, Chinese and Dutch young adults have this difference, and are chosen as the target groups. To sum up, this project aims to explore the interaction with a smart bathroom floor cleaner in Chinese and Dutch cultural contexts. The main challenge is to collect and analyze information from different aspects, and then integrated into a complex system, namely a smart bathroom floor cleaner system. The related aspects include context, user experience, smart product technologies, etc. We analyzed the bathroom environment conditions, the cleaning related concerns, the expected cleaning experience, promising technologies, Cyber-physical systems principles, and the opportunities in Chinese and Dutch smart product markets. The results show that the two groups have no significant differences in bathroom usage and cleaning habits. The expected experience for both groups is trustworthy and effortless. However, their attitudes towards smart products are different. The Chinese group has higher interest, while the Dutch group is more conservative. This difference is also consistent with the difference in the smart product markets. Therefore, we designed different interaction concepts based on the device in different intelligence levels in the conceptualization phase. In order to design an interaction concept, at first we need a device concept that can meet the requirements of the bathroom cleaning. This device concept is formed by two cleaning robots and a base station. It has physical functions and cognitive functions about the bathroom cleaning. Then, the
generation of the interaction concepts is based on the device concept’s variants with different intelligence levels. Supplemented by interaction techniques and emotional expectations, different interaction concepts were defined.
To analyze the experience of these interaction concepts, we refined the concepts. Through the storyboard and prototypes, participants evaluated these concepts. The results showed that the interaction concept with the most intelligent device could best reach the expected experience. At the same time, interaction elements in other concepts (e.g. using mobile apps to show complex information) also received positive feedback. In the end, we chose the interaction concept with the most intelligent device concept, with elements from other concepts as supplements, and had the final interaction concept. The final evaluation indicated that the concept is able to make the cleaning experience effortless. Users have trust in the cleaning ability of the device. However, trust in machine intelligence is not enough yet. In the end, we provided recommendations for the difficulties encountered throughout the project and the areas that can be improved in the results. ... Read more

Ever since human ancestors picked up rocks and used them as tools, technology has enhanced human capabilities. Over the last decades more and more research has been done in trying to enhance strength and endurance by means of an exoskeleton. Reducing the metabolic cost of human walking using lower extremity exoskeletons is one of the challenges that has been taken on by several research groups. Only recently have some of these groups managed to reduce the metabolic cost of walking with the help of an exoskeleton. Understanding how human walking behavior changes and adapts to these new supportive devices is crucial in the quest to better, more efficient exoskeletons. Effects of two control methods, that were proven to be successful in making human walking more energy efficient, on the biomechanics of human subjects were examined by performing lab experiments and using the collected experimental data to run musculoskeletal simulations to compute muscle mechanics and energetics of six lower extremity muscles. Lab experiments, which were completed by eight out of ten recruited subjects, consisted of treadmill walking with and without the exoskeleton, while EMG, respiratory, kinematic and kinetic data was recorded. Processing of this data, the simulation steps taken and the eventual results are presented in this thesis. It was found that walking with the exoskeleton, while it was not giving any assistance, significantly increased the energy consumption rate of subjects, compared to normal walking. This increase was reduced by one of the two support methods, whereas the other had no significant effect on the total metabolic rate. ... Read more