Lee Mei-Hua, Ranganathan Rajiv, Kagerer Florian A, Mukherjee Ranjan
Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, 308 W Circle Dr Rm 201, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
J Neuroeng Rehabil. 2016 Mar 24;13:34. doi: 10.1186/s12984-016-0139-4.
There has been a recent interest in the development of body-machine interfaces which allow individuals with motor impairments to control assistive devices using body movements.
In this case study, we report findings in the context of the development of such an interface for a 10-year old child with congenital absence of upper and lower limbs. The interface consisted of 4 wireless inertial measurement units (IMUs), which we used to map movements of the upper body to the position of a cursor on a screen. We examined the learning of a task in which the child had to move the cursor to specified targets on the screen as quickly as possible. In addition, we also determined the robustness of the interface by evaluating the child's performance in two different body postures.
We found that the child was not only able to learn the task rapidly, but also showed superior performance when compared to typically developing children in the same age range. Moreover, task performance was comparable for the two different body postures, suggesting that the child was able to control the device in different postures without the need for interface recalibration.
These results clearly establish the viability and robustness of the proposed non-invasive body-machine interface for pediatric populations with severe motor limitations.
近来人们对身体-机器接口的开发产生了兴趣，这种接口能让有运动障碍的个体通过身体动作来控制辅助设备。
在本案例研究中，我们报告了为一名先天性上肢和下肢缺失的10岁儿童开发此类接口的相关研究结果。该接口由4个无线惯性测量单元（IMU）组成，我们用其将上半身的动作映射到屏幕上光标的位置。我们研究了一项任务的学习情况，即该儿童必须尽快将光标移动到屏幕上的指定目标。此外，我们还通过评估该儿童在两种不同身体姿势下的表现来确定接口的稳定性。
我们发现该儿童不仅能够快速学会这项任务，而且与同年龄段发育正常的儿童相比表现更优。此外，两种不同身体姿势下的任务表现相当，这表明该儿童能够在不同姿势下控制设备，而无需重新校准接口。
这些结果清楚地证明了所提出的非侵入性身体-机器接口对于有严重运动限制的儿科人群的可行性和稳定性。
