Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 2.5
Example of rehabilitative robot for gait training
of patient progress during rehabilitation and recovery from the effects of a neu-
rologic disease, a musculoskeletal injury or a disease process, or amputation of
a lower limb. Optoelectronic systems allowed for an automated fine resolution of
human locomotion through a multi-camera setup recording the 3D positions of
retro-reflective markers placed onto the body.
These systems started from an Italian patent that introduced an innovative method
for real-time image processing of multiple video-camera images to detect objects of
known shaped and luminosity in the scene and compute their 3-dimensional coor-
dinates through stereo-photogrammetry. This is one of the successful example of
exploitation of a patented technology in biomedical instrumentation [
9
] (Fig.
2.8
).
Recent advances introduced markerless motion capture systems based on inno-
vative software algorithm processing multicamera images, or wearable inertial unit
embedding MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes for recording the kinematics of
single anatomical districts or more complete setup (up to total body) (Fig.
2.9
).
Another recent but rapidly spreading application is the Opto-Electronic
Plethysmography (OEP) for the functional analysis of the respiratory system
(Fig.
2.10
). The OEP system allows studying pulmonary ventilation and assess-
ing the mechanics of breathing by measuring the chest wall volume and its varia-
tions during respiration. A large number of small reflective markers are placed on
the thoracic-abdominal surface by hypoallergenic adhesive tape. A set of specially
designed video-cameras analyze the chest wall motion. A dedicated software com-
putes the enclosed volume and its variations during breathing. Also this application
based on optoelectronic motion capture system represents a successful story of a pat-
ent exploitation (Patent no. IT1318534 (B1)—Metodo per misurare caratteristiche
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