CORBY'S Mobile Robot-assisted Gait Rehabilitation System

It has come to my knowledge that, in Europe, strokes are the most common cause of physical disability among the elderly. A group of researchers from 6 nations came together to develop a robotic system specially designed to assist the human body recover from a stroke. The name of the project is called the CORBY'S Project and their ultimate goal is to create a system to assist past and present patients with training, motivation and walking.

A part of their project is the mobile robot assisted gait rehabilitation system which involves physiological data such as a heart rate and muscle activity measurements to help control the robot involved with the rehabilitation. 

The entire concept is based on assisting patients to move his/her legs as if the stroke never happened. If a person suffers a stroke, the area of the body may become partially paralysed; therefore, function of limbs and body parts in that area of the body becomes useless. The robot has so many levels and options available. First there is the learning mode then gradually there is a corrective mode which is at the assistance of a physiotherapist. The next step after that is the Parameter based adaptation which requires the patient to wear a cap to measure brain activity. The robot then adapts to the patient’s movements and then allows the patient the freedom to walk how they want.

This is an excellent invention to help those who have suffered a stroke. This is especially important in Europe as their number 1 form of disability is due to strokes. This robot will also play a major role in spreading awareness to people all over the world that assistance is there if they wish to seek it and with the use of this technology, patients will be able to regain use of their bodies as if nothing happened. 

Find out more!

Source: http://www.robaid.com/bionics/corbys-mobile-robot-assisted-gait-rehabilitation-system.htm

Kazrin Zaidi

Baseball Robot

Just recently I discovered an interesting topic about a robot which is able to play baseball. It is a robotic system which acts as a baseball pitcher and batter. It is named Robot Pitcher. It was made by Masatoshi Ishikawa from Tokyo University. Robot Pitcher can throw a strike, and about 9 percent of the time, the robot will challenge the batter into the strike zone with the ball, which is pretty impressive. It was made in order to demonstrate the latest advances in high speed industrial robot technology in a fun way. They used a strategy focused on the superposition of wave patterns.

They also focus on the research related to robots that collaborate with humans. In their research, they propose a collision avoidance system in which high speed camera heads are placed on the robot’s manipulator in order to increase human safety. This is also to see if the robot reacts similar to humans under different circumstances.

 In a presentation I saw, the researchers placed the robot pitcher around 3.5m away from the mechanical batter. The pitcher’s 40km/h sidearm throws posed little challenge to the batter, whose 1000 frame per second camera eyes allow it to see the ball in super slow motion as it approaches. The robot batter has a near perfect batting average when swinging at pitches in the strike zone. There is even a 3D shape algorithm that uses high speed vision with the help of an active light. To further improve this robot, researchers plan to enable the robot to react to throws of up to 150km/h. Now that would be one awesome robot!

Find out more!

Source: http://www.robaid.com/robotics/baseball-robot-shows-high-speed-dexterity.htm

Kazrin Zaidi

A.I. on traffic light

Have you ever feel annoying when you are stuck at those stupid traffic lights? Have you ever think it would be better if you control them by yourself? Yes, I did! I think human can undoubtedly have a better control on regulating the traffic flow than a machine can do. Recently I saw news about AI technology is being tested to control traffic lights, and I think intelligent traffic light is no longer impossible any more!

Have you played traffic-flow controlling, with four traffic lights, games on your mobile devices? I did, and I got a really high score actually! However, surprisingly, people are born to be better at controlling traffic flow; even compared with computers! The research carried out by the University of Southampton team has used computer games and simulations to investigate what makes good traffic control. This work has shown that – given the right conditions – humans are excellent at controlling the traffic and can perform significantly better than the existing urban traffic control computers in use today.

Researchers at the University of Southampton are investigating the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for controlling traffic lights. Based on the human brain`s extraordinary capability of controlling traffic effectively, they are planning to develop a new kind of software which can improve the efficiency of traffic flow, and in turns improving road space utilization, reducing traveling times and may be improving fuel efficiency. For more details, check it out in source.

 Joseph Yeung

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/26/scientists-investigating-ai-based-traffic-control/