Using the Motion of the Head-Neck as a Joystick for Orientation Control

Zhang, Haohan; Chang, Biing-Chwen; Rue, Young-Jae; Agrawal, Sunil K.

doi:10.1109/tnsre.2019.2894517

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…During the Baseline conditions, participants used the exoskeletons with the motors unpowered. We have previously shown that the Columbia Exo is very back-drivable when unpowered [23]. The observed EMG during Baseline sessions using the two devices were similar, which means the structural improvement in Utah Exo did not increase the effort to back drive the exoskeleton when the motors were unpowered.…”

Section: Columbia Exo Mean Rating (Median) Interquartile Rangementioning

confidence: 80%

“…During the Baseline and Visual conditions, the visual feedback was provided through an avatar interface [22] [23]. On this interface, two avatars were overlaid: one with solid colors was used to provide motion instructions ("target avatar") and the other with translucent colors was used to reflect the actual head-neck motions of the participant, measured by the IMU sensors.…”

Section: Protocolmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Preliminary Study on Effects of Neck Exoskeleton Structural Design in Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Demaree,

Brignone,

Bromberg

et al. 2024

IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng.

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Neck muscle weakness due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) can result in dropped head syndrome, adversely impacting the quality of life of those affected. Static neck collars are currently prescribed to hold the head in a fixed upright position. However, these braces are uncomfortable and do not allow any voluntary headneck movements. By contrast, powered neck exoskeletons have the potential to enable head-neck movements. Our group has recently improved the mechanical structure of a state-of-the-art neck exoskeleton through a weighted optimization. To evaluate the effect of the structural changes, we conducted an experiment in which patients with ALS were asked to perform head-neck tracking tasks while using the two versions of the neck exoskeleton. We found that the neck muscle activation was significantly reduced when assisted by the structurally enhanced design compared to no assistance provided. The improved structure also improved kinematics tracking performance, allowing users to better achieve the desired head poses. In comparison, the previous design did not help reduce the muscle effort required to perform these tasks and even slightly worsened the kinematic tracking performance. It was also found that biomechanical benefits gained from using the structurally improved design were consistent across participants with both mild and severe neck weakness. Furthermore, we observed that participants preferred to use the powered neck exoskeletons to voluntarily move their heads and make eye contact during a conversation task rather than remain in a fixed upright position. Each of these findings highlights the importance of the structural design of neck exoskeletons in achieving desired biomechanical benefits and suggests that neck exoskeletons can be a viable method to improve the daily life of patients with ALS.

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Section: Columbia Exo Mean Rating (Median) Interquartile Rangementioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Protocolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preliminary Study on Effects of Neck Exoskeleton Structural Design in Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Demaree,

Brignone,

Bromberg

et al. 2024

IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng.

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“…Head-neck interfaces have the potential to command and control orientation tasks when the hand-wrist is not available for use as a joystick. In [109], the authors reported the use of a human-like avatar to analyze the trajectories of the head based on actual positions and target in a visual interface (computer screen). The robotic neck brace was validated for both head motion measurements and for providing physical assistance through servomotors.…”

Section: Sensors 2020 20 X For Peer Review 15 Of 28mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Movement coding for control keyboards and displays for patients with ALS and people with upper and lower limbs palsy EEG/EOG/facial EMG/inertial [103,113,114] Control and implementation of tasks and human-machine interfaces like wheelchair, smart shoe, and robot Inertial/flex sensor/camera/ultrasonic/EOG/EEG/ Kinect/force/torque/FRS/infrared [107][108][109][110][111][112]120,128] Emotion recognition for patients with palsy, autism spectrum disorder Camera/movement/sound/infrared [115,[117][118][119] Gesture recognition for aid communication between deaf people and listeners Flex sensor/inertial/EMG [122][123][124][125][126][127]…”

Section: Main Application Sensors Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensors and Systems for Physical Rehabilitation and Health Monitoring—A Review

Nascimento

Bonfati

Freitas

et al. 2020

Sensors

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The use of wearable equipment and sensing devices to monitor physical activities, whether for well-being, sports monitoring, or medical rehabilitation, has expanded rapidly due to the evolution of sensing techniques, cheaper integrated circuits, and the development of connectivity technologies. In this scenario, this paper presents a state-of-the-art review of sensors and systems for rehabilitation and health monitoring. Although we know the increasing importance of data processing techniques, our focus was on analyzing the implementation of sensors and biomedical applications. Although many themes overlap, we organized this review based on three groups: Sensors in Healthcare, Home Medical Assistance, and Continuous Health Monitoring; Systems and Sensors in Physical Rehabilitation; and Assistive Systems.

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“…disorders [5]. In addition, hands-free interaction with HCI can help people with impairments integrate into the workforce, such as through orientation controls that allow impaired people to participate in daily activities [6]. A head-mounted inertial interface was employed in [7], for patients with cerebral palsy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Touchless Head-Control (THC): Head Gesture Recognition for Cursor and Orientation Control

Rahmaniar

Ma’arif

Lin

2022

IEEE Trans. Neural Syst. Rehabil. Eng.

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The touchless techniques in humancomputer interaction (HCI) can effectively expand computer access capabilities for disabled people. This paper presents Touchless Head-Control (THC), an assistive system method for computer cursor control based on head pose captured with an RGB camera. Our work aimed to replace the standard cursor control using a device on the user's head. The convolutional neural networks with predicted fine-grained feature maps and binned classification were applied to estimate the head pose angles. The mouse pointer or cursor is moved to actual locations on the screen based on head movement (yaw and pitch) and the center position of the face. Head tilt to the right or left (roll) to control the mouse button. In addition, the proposed method can be used to simulate the movement of the robot or joystick using the head to control objects within three degrees of freedom (DOF). Various participants were involved in the interaction design evaluation, in which target selection accuracy, travel time, and path efficiency were measured. This technology allows people with limited motor skills to easily control a PC cursor and 3D object orientation without the use of additional equipment or sensors.

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Using the Motion of the Head-Neck as a Joystick for Orientation Control

Cited by 9 publications

References 22 publications

Preliminary Study on Effects of Neck Exoskeleton Structural Design in Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Preliminary Study on Effects of Neck Exoskeleton Structural Design in Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Sensors and Systems for Physical Rehabilitation and Health Monitoring—A Review

Touchless Head-Control (THC): Head Gesture Recognition for Cursor and Orientation Control

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