Surgery – Truss – Pad
Patent
1995-08-07
1998-02-10
Hindenburg, Max
Surgery
Truss
Pad
A61B 510
Patent
active
057158347
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a device for monitoring the configuration of a distal physiological unit comprising an extremity of a limb, the extremity being connected, by means of a wrist, to a respective distal portion of the limb and comprising at least one digit made up of phalanges.
The device may be used, in particular, to allow more natural interaction between man and informatics systems (computers and the like). In the course of the development of the art, interaction between machines and users has always been a crucial problem. With the advent of computers and their development, interaction devices have gradually been improved, permitting the production of ever more sophisticated programs in which human intervention has, to an ever greater extent, taken the form of a dialogue with the machine rather than remaining limited to programming functions and to the preliminary preparation of the input data and the subsequent analysis of the data output by the computer. In spite of this, a large part of the work of translating the data destined for the machine into a form which it can understand is still the responsibility of the user who, up to now, has had to learn and become skilled in the use of data-input devices which, although varied and of different types (keyboards, optical pens, mice, etc.), somehow limit and schematize the expressive forms by which interaction with the rest of the outside world generally and habitually take place.
In recent years a tendency to break down this technological and psychological barrier has emerged, particularly as a result of the advent of programs which reproduce events and situations pertaining to the interaction of man with the outside world, both for the purposes of training (for example, flight or war simulators) and design (of industrial products or processes, of architectural and urban environments) and even recreational, educational and humanitarian purposes (games, study programs, communication systems for the disabled), and for advanced automation applications, for example, for controlling robots working in areas which are inaccessible or dangerous to man.
All the aforementioned applications, which are given by way of non-limiting example, will be referred to generally below as "virtual-reality" applications.
Considerable efforts have recently been concentrated on the identification of interface devices which can transmit to a machine signals indicative of the configuration of the user's hand and, in particular, of the fingers of a hand.
European patent application No. 211984 describes an interface device comprising a glove which is intended to be fitted on the operator's hand and bears a plurality of optical sensors which can detect the flexion of the fingers. The position of the operator's hand in space is detected by means of a system comprising reception sensors which are steady relative to the glove and which reconstruct the position of the glove by virtue of signals sent by a transmitter carried by the glove as it moves. Another device for monitoring the configuration of the hand is described in international patent application WO90/00879 in which an exoskeleton comprising a plurality of lever arms articulated to each other and coupled to Hall-effect sensors is fixed to the phalanges of the fingers.
However, all the known systems have the disadvantage that they supply incomplete and inadequate data and are hence limited to very specific applications relating to the position and the configuration of an operator's hand. In fact, it has been found that incomplete monitoring of the positions of the fingers of the hand, even with the additional monitoring of its absolute position in space, is not satisfactory in more advanced virtual-reality applications which involve the identification of complex movements performed by the human user, for example, during the normal manipulation and gripping of objects.
For example, although the solution illustrated in European application No. 211984 is structurally simple, it has the disad
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Bergamasco Massimo
Parrini Gianluca
Salsedo Fabio
Scattareggia Marchese Sandro
Hindenburg Max
Scuola Superiore Di Studi Universitari & Di Perfezionamento S. A
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