In recent years, robotic rehabilitation has proven to be beneficial for individuals with impaired limbs, particularly due to the potential of robotic therapists to be more accessible, consistent and cost-effective than their human counterparts. While pursuing better rehabilitation methods is a crucial endeavor, it is also important to acknowledge that many people need an alternative form of assistance for physical impairments, both while undergoing rehabilitation and in the unfortunate but common scenario of rehabilitation providing insufficient improvements. The aim of this thesis is to present a low-cost robotic assistive device which may serve as a complement to rehabilitation procedures. The proposed system determines the intended movement of a users upper arm via eye-gaze inputs and force inputs, and physically assists said movement. In this manner, the system may provide immediate relief for someone suffering from physical impairments in their upper limbs, either as a complement to ongoing rehabilitation therapy or as a partial solution in the case of insufficient improvements from rehabilitation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-08192015-082043 |
| Date | 12 October 2015 |
| Creators | Young, Eric Michael |
| Contributors | Nilanjan Sarkar, Thomas Withrow, Zachary Warren |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-08192015-082043/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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