Quanser Helps Develop a Rehab Robot for Stroke Survivors

What's the most effective, efficient way to help hemiparetic stroke survivors regain control of their arms so they can get back to performing normal, everyday activities? For Dr. Alex Mihailidis, Director of the University of Toronto's Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab (IATSL), that's not an academic question. It's the subject of ongoing research he's conducting with a team comprised of University of Toronto postgraduate students, rehabilitation specialists from the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and mechanical and control engineers from Quanser.

Quanser's involvement began four years ago when Dr. Mihailidis suggested some of his postgraduate students work on this project while interning at Quanser. Paul Lam came to work on initial hardware design with Quanser mechanical engineer Don Gardner, and Patricia Kan worked closely with Quanser software engineer Herve Lacheray to enhance existing game-oriented physical exercises and add artifical intelligence capability to the rehab device. As a result, a first iteration of a 2 DOF upper limb rehab device was designed, built, tested and eventually used in rehab situations.

The first prototype of the of the Rehabilitation Robot for stroke survivors was a device with two degrees of freedom.

A third intern, Rajibul Huq, came on board to focus on the device's control software. He collaborated with Herve to build on the control design work done earlier by Patricia. In May of 2010, Elaine Lu joined the IATSL/Quanser team, concentrating on hardware design. Their shared goal was to design a new prototype of the original rehab device that would extend its dynamic rehabilitation capability.

For the robot to be of value to stroke victims, a user-centered focus was key. As a first step, Elaine had sent out an online survey to over 200 rehabilitation therapists, asking for their input on what the robotic device should do and what it should look and feel like to be of rehabilitative use to upper limb stroke survivors. She brought her survey results to Quanser and started to implement them into her design.

Over a four-month period Elaine spent most of her time developing this project in consultation with Quanser's engineers. She familiarized herself with the robotic hardware Quanser had already developed, including the controls we'd already designed, and began working to incorporate some of the ideas her online survey had generated.

A working prototype was completed in April of 2011. Elaine will soon take it to a focus group of therapists and stroke survivors for real-world trials. The trials will highlight what's right and what can be improved. A third prototype will then be built incorporating this feedback.

Based on the feedback from patients and therapists, researchers from the University of Toronto, Toronto Rehab Institute and Quanser developed a new Rehab Robot prototype, now ready for real-world trials.

In the future, Dr. Mihailidis and the IATSL team plan to set up a clinic at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute to conduct clinical trials, using 10 of advanced Rehab Robot prototypes. The eventual goal is to perfect the Rehab Robot for everyday use by stroke survivors in the privacy of their own homes, as well as in rehab clinics.

As the IATSL and TRI researchers, or any of our engineers could tell you, "Engineering a better future" is not merely a slogan at Quanser. It's our focus. It's why we collaborate with the academic and research community.

Meet Quanser at the IEEE CCECE Conference

If you are planning to attend this year's IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE) on May 8 -11 in Niagara Falls, Ontario, you will have an opportunity to learn about Quanser teaching tools that are helping educate the next generation of engineering professionals. These tools are giving undergraduate and graduate students valuable hands-on experience and exposure to the challenges of real-world engineering.

Stop by Quanser's exhibit at the conference to talk to our engineers about teaching controls and research collaboration. You can also see a live demo of our rotary SRV-02 based workstations, one of Quanser's cost-effective solutions that assist universities in producing graduates with industry-relevant skills.

We look forward to meeting you at the conference.

Highlights from the Engineering Deans Institute 2011

I recently participated in the American Association for Engineering Education (ASEE) Engineering Deans Institute (EDI), held in Palm Springs, CA. The Annual ASEE EDI meetings provide an opportunity for engineering deans, industry leaders and those in important roles in research and government to gather and discuss crucial issues facing their schools, colleges and profession.

The theme of the 2011 meeting was “Engineering Empowering Society”. For a few days, the single-stream program fostered dialogue between deans, industry leaders, and those in important roles in research and government. Some of the key threads discussed were:

• Engineering as enabling discipline: Impacting the economy, through innovation and the creation of new businesses and enterprises; empowering the “other 90%” in the world (at the “bottom of the pyramid.”)

• Better preparing US engineering students by innovative engineering curricula, and by improving the K-12 pipeline.

• Engaging all segments of the society to ensure a robust supply of talented engineering human resources.

• Communicating the relevance of engineering and avoiding erosion in technological leadership: “changing the conversation,” as articulated by the NAE and ASEE.

• Maintaining and enhancing US engineering global leadership.

For me, the highlight of the meeting was Dr. Charles M. Vest’s Main Plenary Address on “Engineering Education: Creating Opportunity in a Changing and Uncertain World.” Dr. Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering, spoke about engineering education being at the core of America’s research universities, the general recognition that America’s economic growth and global competitiveness are increasingly being driven by advances in knowledge and that America’s engineering schools do and will continue to play a key role in the acceleration of scientific discovery and innovation.

Quanser Worldwide Team Gathers To Focus On Academia

Two weeks ago we proudly hosted the second annual Quanser Distributor Conference (QDC) in Toronto. The three-day event brought together 22 of our distributors from Europe, South and Central America, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, to meet and mingle with Quanser's engineering, sales and marketing teams.

Completely committed to the worldwide academic market
Three days were devoted to discussing a wide variety of business topics, hands-on demonstrations of Quanser solutions and one thing more - the opportunity for all of us at Quanser to listen to our individual distributors and learn more about the needs and concerns of engineering professors and researchers in their part of the world. Ultimately this will help us and our distributors to serve academia even better.

An unrivalled range of products for engineering labs
A full day was dedicated to a hands-on, product-oriented Tech Tour at Quanser headquarters in Markham, Ontario. Distributors circulated through five product demonstrations areas: Earthquake Engineering, Rotary Motion Controls, Mechatronics, Unmanned Vehicle Systems and Robotics. In-depth discussions took place at every demonstration station. At the end of the day, distributors had a clear picture of the full capabilities of all key systems.

More investment in new products, technology and people
Distributors also heard about future plans and got a sneak peek at some new Quanser educational products for 2011 - 2012. These include improvements to our MechKit, our Quanser Ground Vehicle (QGV) and a new Wind Turbine Experiment. We're excited about all of them. New hires in our engineering, sales and marketing departments took the opportunity to meet the distributors. These personal connections will make our worldwide communication easier and ultimately be of great benefit to engineering educators.

The 2011 Quanser Distributor Conference is barely over, but the distributors have already told us the conference was positive and energizing. Indeed, everyone involved - Quanser and its distributors - left even more closely focused on working with our engineering academics to advance the worldwide quality of engineering education.

Watch some highlights of the 2011 Quanser Distributor Conference:

Coming Soon: A New Robotic System That Gives Research and Training A Hand

In the not-too-distant future, robotics research and teaching will take a significant step forward thanks to some new R&D work currently underway in Quanser's robotics division. The research involves having a prototype of a future Quanser product - a small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) - being tele-operated through a gesture-sensing glove linked to a magnetic tracking system.

This will open up new and better possibilities for robotic control research and teaching. Researchers, instructors and students can expect a deeper, more intuitive experience as well as a significantly shorter learning curve. Essentially, this new system will extend the capability of our UGVs for research and teaching by adding a new layer of gesture-based functionality.

Click below to view the tele-operation in action. As you will see, the kinematics and Jacobian of the arms are solved. The hand motion and gestures are calculated, mapped in a global frame, and transmitted wirelessly to the UGV rover. The arm is clutched with the operator's thumb and his index finer controls the gripper.

At the macro level, here's how the system and glove "fit" together: a magnetic motion tracking system and the gesture-sensing glove have been integrated into QUARC control software functionalities. This high resolution tracking system computes the translation and rotation motions, i.e., roll, pitch and yaw, in a pre-defined Cartesian frame. The data is used to compute a transformation matrix and conveys sufficient information about the operator's hand motion. The glove itself contains strain gauges that capture the operator's hand gestures.

Using QUARC communication blocks, the transformational matrix and the glove data are transmitted to the Gumstix processor onboard the small UGV. Infrared sensors and an RGB camera are some of the other devices onboard the UGV. The QUARC program receives the motion commands from the station PC.

The kinematics and Jacobian mapping motions of the robotic arm are computed and the commanded motions are translated into joint level PWM inputs for the arm. The PWM commands are applied to the servos using HiQ. (The latter is a data acquisiton board specially designed and manufactured by Quanser to be used onboard unmanned aerial vehicles and small unmanned ground vehicles.)

This project is the result of coordinated research and contributions from the Quanser Robotics Team. Amin Abdossalami, R&D Engineer, was responsible for the controls, kinematics and tele-operations. Cameron Fulford, Engineering Manager, Systems & Control, designed the hardware interface and made it a module inside QUARC. Don Gardner did the final assembly of the robot and shot the video demonstration.

The small UGV with glove tele-operation functionality will join the fleet of Quanser unmanned systems in the near future. We're very excited about its ability to offer researchers and students a better tool with which to work and learn.

Growing The Next Generation of Innovative Engineers

Back in the 1950's and 1960's, when NASA's space program was getting off the ground, aerospace engineers' average age was in their 20's. Today, aerospace engineers have an average age of around 55. Ten years from now, those engineers will be retired. So it's fair to ask, "Who will take their place?" That's a question many people in the scientific community, including leading entrepreneur, innovator and founder of FIRST robotic competition Dean Kamen, have posed for some time now. It's obviously an important issue for us at Quanser too, since our major focus is on creating educational products and curriculum for control engineering education.

Are young people sufficiently excited by science education today? It certainly doesn't seem so. Engineering school enrollments are down in North America, and a smaller percentage of students graduate than in past years. The fact is, while it may have been cool to be an aerospace engineer in the 1960's, young people today have largely found their heroes in the world of entertainment and professional sports. They're keeping their eyes on the ball alright, but in our opinion, in most cases it's the wrong ball. Instead of a basketball, it should be a ball bearing in a Ball and Beam experiment!

Our motto is "Captivate. Motivate. Educate." and we bring that spirit to the classroom. Our control products, experiments and curriculum are expressly designed with these goals in mind. Dean Kamen has the same goals. Two decades ago he founded FIRST, an organization dedicated to inspiring young people's interest and participation in science and technology. FIRST is like an all-star game for young science and engineering students, and Quanser is proud to be a part of it. Our engineers are committed to it, acting as coaches for the high school teams and also judging the competitions. This week, March 24 - 26, we'll be doing both in Waterloo, Ontario as 30 teams of the smartest, most inquisitive students in Ontario show us their stuff. Stay tuned for a report on what went on.

We've no doubt that the engineering superstars of tomorrow will be nurtured by competitions and collaborations like these. So while our focus is creating exciting, new, cost-effective university-level engineering education hardware and software, in our spare time we're dedicated to ensuring that the excitement of engineering education is ignited – as early as grade school. That way, we're covering all the bases and preparing more students to be part of the next generation of technical innovators and entrepreneurs.

Watch a short interview with Paul Karam, Director of Engineering at Quanser to find out why he thinks competitions like FIRST are important for students - and for companies like Quanser.

Quanser Expertise Attracts Advanced Motion Research Projects

As part of his latest experimental research, Professor Venkat Krovi, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at SUNY Buffalo, was looking to develop a prototype of a 6 DOF motion platform. This platform would move over a fixed base and be interconnected by several legs.

To ensure the smoothest possible working relationship and achieve their goals in a timely, cost-efficient manner, Dr. Krovi and his team at the Automation, Robotics and Mechatronics (ARM) Lab engaged Quanser, a world leader in the design and manufacture of real-time control systems.

Dr. Krovi’s confidence in Quanser was based on experience. He’d worked with Quanser’s engineers before as one of the first users of our brand new High Definition Haptic Device HD2.

From the very beginning, the ARM Lab and Quanser spoke the same language. To generate the mathematical basis for the motion platform project, Dr. Krovi‘s team used Maplesoft's MapleSim mathematical modeling software. Maplesoft is a Quanser development partner, and Quanser’s expertise with MapleSim modeling contributed significantly to the speed and effectiveness of the collaborative process.

Equally important to Dr. Krovi was the fact that Quanser management and engineers fully understood his world. As he put it, “The process became very easy when working with Quanser’s team - from engineering through management, everyone was very cooperative.”

He also found that they could devise solutions in a relatively short timeframe. “We were able to quickly nail down the specifications and proceed through various stages of the design cycle which paved the way to the project and its timely completion.”

The entire process - from concept to working prototype - only took two months, less time than normal in a university setting. This allowed Dr. Krovi’s grad students to remain closely involved throughout. The final product ­ the 6 DOF motion platform Quanser developed with the ARM Lab ­is known as the Hexapod, and it is a key part of Quanser’s Mechatronics Controls Collection.

Quanser's Hexapod is a six degrees of freedom motion platform suitable for research in areas such as earthquake simulation, flight simulation and vibration studies.

Like all Quanser devices, the Hexapod is multi-faceted and designed to work in conjunction with other tools to accomplish a wide range of research goals. Currently, at SUNY Buffalo, the Quanser Hexapod is being used in conjunction with the Quanser Haptic Device HD2 to further needle insertion research by helping design a surgical training simulator for biopsy procedures.

- Note: the Hexapod is no longer available for purchase in North America, Europe, Japan and Taiwan. -