Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
4.5
2.7
Journals
Applied Sciences
Special Issues
New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems
share announcement

New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Robotics and Automation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2023) | Viewed by 17893

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Martin J.-D. Otis

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Automation and Interactive Robotic Lab (AIRL), Département des sciences appliquées, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi, QC G7H 2B1, Canada
Interests: intelligent wearable devices; human-robot interaction; Smart sensor; Industrial automation; collaborative robotic; robot swarm
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Alexandre Robichaud

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Automation and Interactive Robotic Lab (AIRL), Département des sciences appliquées, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi, QC G7H 2B1, Canada
Interests: microelectromechanical systems; smart sensor; intelligent wearable devices; embedded systems; integrated circuits

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, we have witnessed several innovations in the field of smart wearable and interactive mechatronic systems. Smart insoles, smart safety helmets, high-definition haptic devices, eye movement sensors, functional fabrics, and personalized wearable and biometric identification devices are some examples of such innovations. One of the reasons behind this new trend is the increase in computation capacity of system-on-a-chip (SOC) implemented on smart phones and smart watches. However, for these new technologies to reach their full potential, many challenges remain to be met, such as power management, life duration, mechanical wear, transparency, size, weight, etc.

In this context, embedded systems, mechatronics, microsystems, and MEMS sensors and actuators are playing a role of choice. We invite high-quality, novel, innovative, and unpublished contributions on any topics focused on applied sciences using concepts in the fields of microelectronics, mechatronic, haptic, interaction, collaboration, and telemetry, including, but not limited to:

  • Smart wearable devices;
  • Human-assisted devices;
  • MEMS sensors and actuators;
  • Energy harvesters;
  • Subcutaneous implantable systems;
  • Interactive microrobots and nanorobots;
  • Wireless power;
  • Internet of Things in wearable devices;
  • Interaction and collaboration techniques with psychophysics studies;
  • Human evaluation and perception;
  • Stimulation (electric current, vibration, etc.);
  • Applications: health, elderly, industrial, construction, consumer electronics, etc.

Prof. Dr. Martin J.-D. Otis
Prof. Dr. Alexandre Robichaud
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • haptics in wearables
  • MEMS sensors and actuators
  • microelectronics
  • embedded systems
  • energy harvesters
  • Internet of Things
  • interaction techniques
  • human perception

Published Papers (7 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

11 pages, 5907 KiB  
Article
Online Walking Speed Estimation Based on Gait Phase and Kinematic Model for Intelligent Lower-Limb Prosthesis
by Yi Liu, Honglei An, Hongxu Ma and Qing Wei
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(3), 1893; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13031893 - 01 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1277
Abstract
Intelligent lower-limb prostheses aims to make amputees walk more comfortably and symmetrically which requires the dynamic altering of gait parameters such as walking speed. Some solutions have been proposed such as direct integration and machine learning methods. The former updates walking speed once [...] Read more.
Intelligent lower-limb prostheses aims to make amputees walk more comfortably and symmetrically which requires the dynamic altering of gait parameters such as walking speed. Some solutions have been proposed such as direct integration and machine learning methods. The former updates walking speed once after an entire gait cycle and the latter collects large amounts of gait data which are unfriendly to lower-limb amputees. Only by using an inertial measurement unit (IMU) placed on the thigh, this paper proposes a novel online walking speed estimation method to determine the walking speed rapidly and accurately in real-time. A step frequency estimator based on the phase variable and a stride estimator based on the inverted pendulum model is designed to determine the walking speed together. The proposed method is evaluated on a public open-source dataset and the gait data were collected in the lab to verify the effectiveness for able-bodied and prosthetic wearers. The experiment results show that the walking speed estimator offers higher accuracy (RMSE of the able-bodied dataset: 0.051 ± 0.016 m/s, RMSE of the prosthetic wearers‘ dataset: 0.036 ± 0.021 m/s) than the previous works with a real-time frequency of 100 Hz. The results also show that the proposed method has good performances both in static speeds and dynamic speed tracking without much data collection before being applied. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 2412 KiB  
Article
Magic of 5G Technology and Optimization Methods Applied to Biomedical Devices: A Survey
by Lida Kouhalvandi, Ladislau Matekovits and Ildiko Peter
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(14), 7096; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12147096 - 14 Jul 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2323
Abstract
Wireless networks have gained significant attention and importance in healthcare as various medical devices such as mobile devices, sensors, and remote monitoring equipment must be connected to communication networks. In order to provide advanced medical treatments to patients, high-performance technologies such as the [...] Read more.
Wireless networks have gained significant attention and importance in healthcare as various medical devices such as mobile devices, sensors, and remote monitoring equipment must be connected to communication networks. In order to provide advanced medical treatments to patients, high-performance technologies such as the emerging fifth generation/sixth generation (5G/6G) are required for transferring data to and from medical devices and in addition to their major components developed with improved optimization methods which are substantially needed and embedded in them. Providing intelligent system design is a challenging task in medical applications, as it affects the whole behaviors of medical devices. A critical review of the medical devices and the various optimization methods employed are presented in this paper, to pave the way for designers to develop an apparatus that is applicable in the healthcare industry under 5G technology and future 6G wireless networks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

19 pages, 2496 KiB  
Article
Tailoring mHealth Apps on Users to Support Behavior Change Interventions: Conceptual and Computational Considerations
by Fabio Sartori, Marco Savi and Jacopo Talpini
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(8), 3782; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12083782 - 08 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1941
Abstract
Personalization is an important factor to increase the user experience (UX) and effectiveness of mHealth solutions. In this paper, we present an innovative approach to the personalization of mHealth apps. A profiling function has been developed based on the physical and psychological characteristics [...] Read more.
Personalization is an important factor to increase the user experience (UX) and effectiveness of mHealth solutions. In this paper, we present an innovative approach to the personalization of mHealth apps. A profiling function has been developed based on the physical and psychological characteristics of users, with the final aim to cluster them acting as a guideline to the design and implementation of new functionalities to improve the overall acceptance degree of the app. A preliminary analysis case study has been proposed to evaluate the impact on user experience according to the state of the art to draw useful lessons for future works. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

28 pages, 6285 KiB  
Article
Indoor-Guided Navigation for People Who Are Blind: Crowdsourcing for Route Mapping and Assistance
by Darius Plikynas, Audrius Indriulionis, Algirdas Laukaitis and Leonidas Sakalauskas
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(1), 523; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12010523 - 05 Jan 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2903
Abstract
This paper presents an approach to enhance electronic traveling aids (ETAs) for people who are blind and severely visually impaired (BSVI) using indoor orientation and guided navigation by employing social outsourcing of indoor route mapping and assistance processes. This type of approach is [...] Read more.
This paper presents an approach to enhance electronic traveling aids (ETAs) for people who are blind and severely visually impaired (BSVI) using indoor orientation and guided navigation by employing social outsourcing of indoor route mapping and assistance processes. This type of approach is necessary because GPS does not work well, and infrastructural investments are absent or too costly to install for indoor navigation. Our approach proposes the prior outsourcing of vision-based recordings of indoor routes from an online network of seeing volunteers, who gather and constantly update a web cloud database of indoor routes using specialized sensory equipment and web services. Computational intelligence-based algorithms process sensory data and prepare them for BSVI usage. In this way, people who are BSVI can obtain ready-to-use access to the indoor routes database. This type of service has not previously been offered in such a setting. Specialized wearable sensory ETA equipment, depth cameras, smartphones, computer vision algorithms, tactile and audio interfaces, and computational intelligence algorithms are employed for that matter. The integration of semantic data of points of interest (such as stairs, doors, WC, entrances/exits) and evacuation schemes could make the proposed approach even more attractive to BVSI users. Presented approach crowdsources volunteers’ real-time online help for complex navigational situations using a mobile app, a live video stream from BSVI wearable cameras, and digitalized maps of buildings’ evacuation schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 1115 KiB  
Article
Microcirculatory and Metabolic Responses during Voluntary Cycle Ergometer Exercise with a Whole-Body Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation Device
by Kaori Ochiai, Yuma Tamura, Masato Terashima, Tomoki Tsurumi and Takanori Yasu
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(24), 12048; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112412048 - 17 Dec 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2207
Abstract
Vigorous exercise increases blood viscosity and may pose a risk of cardiovascular events in patients with cardiovascular diseases. We recently reported that single-use of novel whole-body neuromuscular electrical stimulation (WB-NMES) can be safely applied in healthy subjects without adversely affecting blood fluidity. We [...] Read more.
Vigorous exercise increases blood viscosity and may pose a risk of cardiovascular events in patients with cardiovascular diseases. We recently reported that single-use of novel whole-body neuromuscular electrical stimulation (WB-NMES) can be safely applied in healthy subjects without adversely affecting blood fluidity. We performed a crossover study to explore the effectiveness and safety of a hybrid exercise with ergo-bicycle and WB-NMES; 15 healthy volunteers, aged 23–41 years, participated in this study. No arrhythmias were detected during the hybrid exercise and 20 min recovery, and although blood fluidity was transiently exacerbated immediately after both the exercise programs, in vivo parameters in the sublingual and nailfold microcirculation remained unchanged. There was a significant decrease in blood glucose and increase in lactic acid levels immediately after both exercise programs. Even with the same workload as the cycle ergometer exercise, the oxygen intake during the hybrid exercise remained higher than that during the cycle ergometer exercise alone (p < 0.05, r = 0.79, power = 0.81). Both the hybrid and voluntary cycle ergometer exercises transiently exacerbated blood fluidity ex vivo; however, microvascular flow was not adversely affected in vivo. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 792 KiB  
Article
A Many-Objective Simultaneous Feature Selection and Discretization for LCS-Based Gesture Recognition
by Martin J.-D. Otis and Julien Vandewynckel
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(21), 9787; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11219787 - 20 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1096
Abstract
Discretization and feature selection are two relevant techniques for dimensionality reduction. The first one aims to transform a set of continuous attributes into discrete ones, and the second removes the irrelevant and redundant features; these two methods often lead to be more specific [...] Read more.
Discretization and feature selection are two relevant techniques for dimensionality reduction. The first one aims to transform a set of continuous attributes into discrete ones, and the second removes the irrelevant and redundant features; these two methods often lead to be more specific and concise data. In this paper, we propose to simultaneously deal with optimal feature subset selection, discretization, and classifier parameter tuning. As an illustration, the proposed problem formulation has been addressed using a constrained many-objective optimization algorithm based on dominance and decomposition (C-MOEA/DD) and a limited-memory implementation of the warping longest common subsequence algorithm (WarpingLCSS). In addition, the discretization sub-problem has been addressed using a variable-length representation, along with a variable-length crossover, to overcome the need of specifying the number of elements defining the discretization scheme in advance. We conduct experiments on a real-world benchmark dataset; compare two discretization criteria as discretization objective, namely Ameva and ur-CAIM; and analyze recognition performance and reduction capabilities. Our results show that our approach outperforms previous reported results by up to 11% and achieves an average feature reduction rate of 80%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

15 pages, 5589 KiB  
Article
Design of a Semi-Active Prosthetic Knee for Transfemoral Amputees: Gait Symmetry Research by Simulation
by Zhewen Zhang, Hongliu Yu, Wujing Cao, Xiaoming Wang, Qiaoling Meng and Chunjie Chen
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(12), 5328; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11125328 - 08 Jun 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4558
Abstract
The key technology of the prosthetic knee is to simulate the torque and angle of the biological knee. In this work, we proposed a novel prosthetic knee operated in semi-active mode. The structure with ball-screw driven by the motor and the passive hydraulic [...] Read more.
The key technology of the prosthetic knee is to simulate the torque and angle of the biological knee. In this work, we proposed a novel prosthetic knee operated in semi-active mode. The structure with ball-screw driven by the motor and the passive hydraulic damping cylinder was presented. A four-bar linkage was adapted to track the instantaneous center motion of human knee. The mathematical models of hydraulic cylinder damping and active torque were established to simulate the knee torque and angle. The results show that the knee torque symmetry index is smaller than 10% in the whole gait. The knee angle symmetry index value is 34.7% in stance phase and 11.5% in swing phase. The angle in swing phase is closer to the intact knee. The semi-active prosthetic knee could provide similar torque and angle of the biological knee in the simulation. It has shown good potential in improving the gait symmetry of the transfemoral amputee. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Smart Wearable and Interactive Mechatronic Systems)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-7
Back to TopTop