SCH: INT: Collaborative Research: Smart Wearable Systems to Support and Measure Movement in Children With and Without Mobility Impairments

该项目侧重于开发可穿戴技术，以测量和帮助行动障碍儿童的上肢活动能力。由于生命早期的行动障碍会对心理和身体发育产生长期影响，因此，通过辅助技术帮助儿童克服这些障碍，并能够长期衡量干预措施对日常活动的影响，这一点非常重要。然而，大多数辅助和传感技术笨重且不舒服。该项目团队将开发柔软、低调的传感和驱动技术，使其外观和触感都像日常服装。可穿戴系统将由一组3-12岁的儿童及其看护人开发和评估。这项工作将有助于技术的发展，使人们能够理解和干预对行动障碍的影响，并为美国蓬勃发展的智能纺织品和服装行业做出贡献。该方法依靠缝合，基于纺织品的传感和软充气结构和形状记忆纤维的混合方法来辅助肢体运动。基于学习的活动识别算法将被开发，对身体形状和服装运动误差的差异具有鲁棒性。行动障碍儿童的非典型动作将被识别，从而能够评估诸如活动范围等临床指标。该系统的致动元件采用软气动结构提供反重力（升力）力，形状记忆合金（SMA）弹簧型致动器提供方向控制。该系统将分两个阶段开发：最初，传感组件和被动升降机（充气外展支持）将使用正常发育的儿童开发，并在15名行动不便的儿童中进行为期4周的家庭试验。在一年的时间里，将与5-10个有行动障碍儿童的家庭合作开发和部署主动驱动系统。两种系统对用户的影响？将对这些系统的可用性和社会可接受性进行评估。

This project focuses on the development of wearable technologies to measure and assist upper-limb mobility in children with mobility impairments. Because mobility impairments in early life can have long-term effects on psychological as well as physical development, it is important both to help children overcome these impairments through assistive technologies and to be able to measure the effect of interventions in everyday movements over long periods of time. However, most assistive and sensing technologies are bulky and uncomfortable. The project team will develop soft, low-profile sensing and actuating technologies that look and feel like everyday clothing. The wearable systems will be developed and evaluated with a group of 3-12 year old children and their caregivers. This work will contribute to the development of technologies that enable understanding and effects of interventions on mobility impairments, and contribute to the burgeoning smart textiles and clothing industry in the USA. The approach relies on stitched, textile-based sensing and a hybrid approach of soft inflatable structures and shape-memory fibers to assist limb movements. Learning based activity recognition algorithms will be developed that are robust to differences in body shape and garment-movement error. The atypical movements performed by children with mobility impairments will be recognized, enabling assessment of clinical indicators like range of movement. The actuating component of the proposed system uses soft pneumatic structures to provide counter-gravitational (lift) forces, and Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) spring-type actuators to provide directional control. The system will be developed in two phases: initially, the sensing component and the passive lift (inflatable abduction support) will be developed using typically-developing children, and tested in 4-week in-home trials with 15 children with mobility impairments. The active actuated system will be developed and deployed in collaboration with 5-10 families with children with mobility impairments over a period of one year. The effects of both systems on user?s upper-limb mobility as well as the usability and social acceptability of the systems will be evaluated.