In biomedical systems the bend sensors have been increasingly used stands their interesting properties useful to measure human joint static and dynamic postures. These commercially available sensors are usually made of a polyester film printed on with a special carbon ink. The film acts as a support while the ink’s resistance value changes with bending dues to an applied external force. The substrate film material is usually made by Kapton and/or Mylar for their properties, stands the fact that substrate must be able to bend repeatedly without failure for the sensor to work. In spite of their interesting properties the commercial bend sensors have a resistance vs. bent angle characteristic which is not actually ideal as a linear function, to measure human postures, would be. So we introduce here a novel solution useful to linearize the sensor response.

Investigation on the more suitable technologies to register human body movements in 3D space with great spatial accuracy is a very challenging task, because a wide range of applications are concerned, from registration of post-stroke rehabilitation or sports performance, to monitoring of movement of disabled or elderly people, etc. In this paper the possibilities offered by piezoresistive bend sensors applied as wearable devices, integrated on body garments, have been explored. Piezoresistive sensors can be usefully adopted to recover human joint bend angles for body movement tracking. Due to their pliability, sensitivity and cheapness, they could be a valid alternative to movement analysis systems based on optoelectronic devices or inertial electronic sensors. This paper suggests a new approach to model their electrical behavior during bending and extension movements, in order to predict their real-time performance during different kinds of applications.

A simple PC screen can be considered as an interface of a virtual environment where an user can move objects and interact with them. The interaction tools can be simply a virtual mouse or a keyboard. But it is evident how these tools cannot provide an immersive experience since the bi-dimensionality of the screen. So in the latter years the virtual reality is becoming more and more accomplished by new hardware interfaces capable to increase the realism degree. Among all, the sensorized glove is becoming one of the more interesting and promising of these interfaces. Here we propose the electronic interface and signal conditioning circuitry we adopt as the most suitable for our developed data glove system. The same solution we adopted can be usefully extended for other specific systems that treat signals coming from sensors which read kinematics from disabled persons with reduced Range Of Motion (ROM) capabilities.

Human Machine Interfaces support users to interact or simply control any kind of devices founded on machinery basis. Very simple and common interfaces are represented by the mouse and keyboard tools by which a user interact with the personal computer “machine”. It is however evident how these tools can be particularly “limited” since they “act” only in a 2D superficial environment and cannot provide an immersive experience. So in the latter years new kind of interfaces have been investigated in order to expand the user capabilities in a 3D space, then increasing the realism degree too. In this paper we deal with a new kind of these interfaces. In fact we developed a sensorized glove capable to measure all human hand Degree of Freedom (DoF), “translating” them into commands for personal computers.

Due to their pliability, sensitivity and cheapness, piezoresistive sensors can be usefully adopted to recover joint bend angles in human body movement tracking. After providing quasi-static and dynamic electrical characterization of piezoresistive sensors, the authors develop a simple and accurate RLC model fitted on sensor electrical response under fast deformation and relaxation movements, which allows to predict the actual device behavior in tracking body fast movements.

Laser detection and tracking of aircrafts based systems (LIDARs, LIgth Detection And Ranging systems) are emerging as a critical design trend in development of new generation ATM (Air Traffic Management) paradigms, of which they are the main innovations. The realization of laser sensors as rotating laser range-finder arrays and their combination to versatile systems lead to major advantages for the application such as Air Traffic Control within Aerodrome Traffic Zone (ATZ), airport surveillance and ground to air laser communications, and last but not least to save cost usually at the same time with getting an improved ATC (Air Traffic Control) performance. These laser systems that today can be developed without particular difficulties are challenging classical ATM paradigms in many aspects. Nevertheless, it is commonly recognized that the effectiveness of these systems strictly relies on the capability to reliably perform a track data fusion with airport radars and to manage a new generation ATM paradigm. In particular, driving and control a data fusion between laser tracking data and radar tracking data a very high computation power is required. The main goal of the presented project is therefore to develop a novel laser tracking technology (SKY-Scanner System) capable to detect and track of aircrafts up to at least 6 nautical miles from the ATZ barycenter, namely a facility of enabling techniques, protocols, numerical prediction tools and devices specifically designed for the analysis of the laser systems performances in ATC applications, with the final target of defining a new generation ATM paradigm based on radar and laser tracking data fusion, and ground to air laser communications. The proposed methodology is considered at the frontier of technological research but it represents the only realistic way to put solid basis for the fabrication of effective radar and lidar integrated systems for incorporation in new generation ATM paradigms.

Laser detection and tracking of aircrafts based systems (LIDARs, LIgth Detection And Ranging systems) are emerging as a critical design trend in development of new generation ATM (Air Traffic Management) paradigms, of which they are the main innovations. The realization of laser sensors as rotating laser range-finder arrays and their combination to versatile systems lead to major advantages for the application such as Air Traffic Control within Aerodrome Traffic Zone (ATZ), airport surveillance and ground to air laser communications, and last but not least to save cost usually at the same time with getting an improved ATC (Air Traffic Control) performance. These laser systems that today can be developed without particular difficulties are challenging classical ATM paradigms in many aspects. Nevertheless, it is commonly recognized that the effectiveness of these systems strictly relies on the capability to reliably perform a track data fusion with airport radars and to manage a new generation ATM paradigm. In particular, driving and control a data fusion between laser tracking data and radar tracking data a very high computation power is required. The main goal of the presented project is therefore to develop a novel laser tracking technology (SKY-Scanner System) capable to detect and track of aircrafts up to at least 6 nautical miles from the ATZ barycenter, namely a facility of enabling techniques, protocols, numerical prediction tools and devices specifically designed for the analysis of the laser systems performances in ATC applications, with the final target of defining a new generation ATM paradigm based on radar and laser tracking data fusion, and ground to air laser communications. The proposed methodology is considered at the frontier of technological research but it represents the only realistic way to put solid basis for the fabrication of effective radar and lidar integrated systems for incorporation in new generation ATM paradigms.

Bend sensors fundamental characteristic is to furnish an electrical resistance value related to the angle they are bent. This feature can be successfully exploited to realize wearable systems capable to measure human static and dynamic postures. In particular some efforts have been made to determine finger joint movements of human hands and it has been demonstrated the feasibility of using the so called data glove system as a goniometric device. The repeatability of such system is quite good for general purposes but it is still not sufficient for specific applications (for instance in virtual surgery). So here we introduce a novel application method of bend sensors and demonstrate how it can be useful to improve the system repeatability.

Data gloves are of main importance when it is necessary to measure finger static and dynamic postures of human hand. An advantageous cost to reliability ratio to realize data gloves is adopting bend sensors to measure each finger joints. We propose a novel configuration for bend sensor exploitation useful to improve the performances of a data glove. Here each sensor is not fully independent and acts separately from each other as literature reports, so sensor array configurations are investigated. The design has been made in collaboration with the Flexpoint Sensor Systems Inc. We validated our novel array configurations by means of standard measurement procedure but with some minor differences to overcome recognized problems. Obtained results are encouraging. *Manuscript (With Page Numbers) Click here to view linked References

Flexibility, lightness, wearability and cheapness are the most important features for a successful adoption of bend sensors, being they fundamental elements to realize systems able to convert static positions and movements into electrical signals. Even though these sensors have been employed for many different applications, the focal aspect of their mechanical modeling is still not adequately considered. For such a reason the aim of this paper is to fill a lack concerning the method of bend sensors mechanical characterization and modeling. The results have been exploited to realize an instrumented glove able to measure finger joints movements.