2023
Proceedings Articles
1.
Deiana, Davide; Pinardi, Mattia; Noccaro, Alessia; Iandoli, Michela; Pino, Giovanni Di; Formica, Domenico
Validation of Vibrotactile Feedback to Improve Selective Motor Units Recruitment Proceedings Article
In: 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), pp. 1–5, 2023.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Augmentation, Firing, Indexes, Measurement units, Motor Units, Muscles, Performance evaluation, Psychometric Measures, Task analysis, Vibrations, Vibrotactile Feedback, Wearable Device
@inproceedings{deiana_validation_2023,
title = {Validation of Vibrotactile Feedback to Improve Selective Motor Units Recruitment},
author = {Davide Deiana and Mattia Pinardi and Alessia Noccaro and Michela Iandoli and Giovanni {Di Pino} and Domenico Formica},
doi = {10.1109/MeMeA57477.2023.10171925},
year = {2023},
date = {2023-06-01},
urldate = {2023-06-01},
booktitle = {2023 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA)},
pages = {1–5},
abstract = {Recently, muscle interfaces have been used to control external devices through the activation of single motor units. In the present study, we proposed and validated two different vibro-tactile feedback strategies designed to convey information about the firing rate of two motor units active at the same time. In a two-alternative forced-choice task, participants had to discriminate the higher vibration frequency among the ones of two vibrotactile stimulators placed on their arms. Spike strategy and continuous strategy were tested in two different experiments and motor units’ activation was simulated. The spike strategy directly translates the discharge activity of motor units into a vibratory burst with a 1-to-1 conversion, i.e. each spike of one motor unit triggers a single burst of the corresponding vibrator. This was evaluated in two body configurations, i.e. same forearm versus different arms. The continuous strategy mapped the discharge activity of motor units into a continuous vibration exploiting the entire operative range of vibrotactile stimulators. A single-body configuration was tested (i.e. two different arms). Participants’ responses were fitted with a psychometric sigmoid curve (i.e. a psychometric model commonly applied to detection and discrimination tasks), and the discrimination accuracy index was used to evaluate the feedback strategies. Results from Experiment 1 showed that the continuous strategy worked better when the stimulators were placed on two different arms, but overall discrimination performance was poor. Experiment 2 showed that both the continuous strategy conveyed vastly superior overall performance compared to the continuous strategy.},
keywords = {Augmentation, Firing, Indexes, Measurement units, Motor Units, Muscles, Performance evaluation, Psychometric Measures, Task analysis, Vibrations, Vibrotactile Feedback, Wearable Device},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Recently, muscle interfaces have been used to control external devices through the activation of single motor units. In the present study, we proposed and validated two different vibro-tactile feedback strategies designed to convey information about the firing rate of two motor units active at the same time. In a two-alternative forced-choice task, participants had to discriminate the higher vibration frequency among the ones of two vibrotactile stimulators placed on their arms. Spike strategy and continuous strategy were tested in two different experiments and motor units’ activation was simulated. The spike strategy directly translates the discharge activity of motor units into a vibratory burst with a 1-to-1 conversion, i.e. each spike of one motor unit triggers a single burst of the corresponding vibrator. This was evaluated in two body configurations, i.e. same forearm versus different arms. The continuous strategy mapped the discharge activity of motor units into a continuous vibration exploiting the entire operative range of vibrotactile stimulators. A single-body configuration was tested (i.e. two different arms). Participants’ responses were fitted with a psychometric sigmoid curve (i.e. a psychometric model commonly applied to detection and discrimination tasks), and the discrimination accuracy index was used to evaluate the feedback strategies. Results from Experiment 1 showed that the continuous strategy worked better when the stimulators were placed on two different arms, but overall discrimination performance was poor. Experiment 2 showed that both the continuous strategy conveyed vastly superior overall performance compared to the continuous strategy.
2021
Proceedings Articles
2.
Pinardi, Mattia; Raiano, Luigi; Noccaro, Alessia; Formica, Domenico; Pino, Giovanni Di
Cartesian Space Feedback for Real Time Tracking of a Supernumerary Robotic Limb: a Pilot Study Proceedings Article
In: 2021 10th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER), pp. 889–892, 2021, (ISSN: 1948-3554).
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Legged locomotion, Neural engineering, Position measurement, Real-time systems, Robot kinematics, Tracking, Vibrations
@inproceedings{pinardi_cartesian_2021b,
title = {Cartesian Space Feedback for Real Time Tracking of a Supernumerary Robotic Limb: a Pilot Study},
author = {Mattia Pinardi and Luigi Raiano and Alessia Noccaro and Domenico Formica and Giovanni {Di Pino}},
url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9441174},
doi = {10.1109/NER49283.2021.9441174},
year = {2021},
date = {2021-05-01},
urldate = {2021-05-01},
booktitle = {2021 10th International IEEE/EMBS Conference on Neural Engineering (NER)},
pages = {889–892},
abstract = {We present a system to provide the user with real time proprioceptive feedback regarding the state of a supernumerary robotic limb (SRL). The system converted the robot kinematics into a vibration amplitude-frequency value, using a custom electronic board. Four eccentric-motors placed on the leg delivered the vibrotactile pattern to subjects. We measured the accuracy in real-time tracking of the robot end-effector position and the delay from the robot movement onset. We tested four subjects in a preliminary study, and we found an average Position Error and a Delay of 0.084 ± 0.010 m and 1.169 ± 0.408 s respectively, which validated the feasibility of the presented setup. Increasing the learning phase duration should further improve subject performance. Additionally, the present platform could easily be employed to test the efficacy of different feedbacks (such as joint angles and torques) for real time tracking of SRL.},
note = {ISSN: 1948-3554},
keywords = {Legged locomotion, Neural engineering, Position measurement, Real-time systems, Robot kinematics, Tracking, Vibrations},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
We present a system to provide the user with real time proprioceptive feedback regarding the state of a supernumerary robotic limb (SRL). The system converted the robot kinematics into a vibration amplitude-frequency value, using a custom electronic board. Four eccentric-motors placed on the leg delivered the vibrotactile pattern to subjects. We measured the accuracy in real-time tracking of the robot end-effector position and the delay from the robot movement onset. We tested four subjects in a preliminary study, and we found an average Position Error and a Delay of 0.084 ± 0.010 m and 1.169 ± 0.408 s respectively, which validated the feasibility of the presented setup. Increasing the learning phase duration should further improve subject performance. Additionally, the present platform could easily be employed to test the efficacy of different feedbacks (such as joint angles and torques) for real time tracking of SRL.