RESUMO
Robots can play a significant role as assistive devices for people with movement impairment and mild cognitive deficit. In this paper we present an overview of the lightweight i-Walk intelligent robotic rollator, which offers cognitive and mobility assistance to the elderly and to people with light to moderate mobility impairment. The utility, usability, safety and technical performance of the device is investigated through a clinical study, which took place at a rehabilitation center in Greece involving real patients with mild to moderate cognitive and mobility impairment. This first evaluation study comprised a set of scenarios in a number of pre-defined use cases, including physical rehabilitation exercises, as well as mobility and ambulation involved in typical daily living activities of the patients. The design and implementation of this study is discussed in detail, along with the obtained results, which include both an objective and a subjective evaluation of the system operation, based on a set of technical performance measures and a validated questionnaire for the analysis of qualitative data, respectively. The study shows that the technical modules performed satisfactory under real conditions, and that the users generally hold very positive views of the platform, considering it safe and reliable.
RESUMO
This paper presents a new state-space method for spectral estimation that performs decimation by any factor, it makes use of the full set of data and brings further apart the poles under consideration, while imposing almost no constraints to the size of the Hankel matrix (model order), as decimation increases. It is compared against two previously proposed techniques for spectral estimation (along with derived decimative versions), that lie among the most promising methods in the field of spectroscopy, where accuracy of parameter estimation is of utmost importance. Moreover, it is compared against a state-of-the-art purely decimative method proposed in literature. Experiments performed on simulated NMR signals prove the new method to be more robust, especially for low signal-to-noise ratio.
