PURPOSE To investigate if tests used in the preoperative period of upper abdominal or thoracic surgeries are able to differentiate the patients that presented cardiopulmonary postoperative complications. METHODS Seventy eight patients, 30 submitted to upper abdominal surgery and 48 to thoracic surgery were evaluated. Spirometry, respirometry, manovacuometry, six-minute walk test and stair-cli...

In this paper, we present an algorithm for autonomous stair climbing with a tracked vehicle. The proposed method achieves robust performance under real-world conditions, without assuming prior knowledge of the stair geometry, the dynamics of the vehicle’s interaction with the stair surface, or lighting conditions. Our approach relies on fast and accurate estimation of the robot’s heading and it...

BACKGROUND Few studies have reported the biomechanical aspects of stair climbing for this ergonomically demanding task. The purpose of this ethically approved study was to identify normal functional parameters of the lower limb during stair climbing and to compare the actions of stair ascent and descent in young healthy individuals. METHODS Thirty-three young healthy subjects, (16 M, 17 F, ra...

RHex is a hexapod robot with compliant legs and only six actuated degrees of freedom. Its ability to traverse highly fractured and unstable terrain has already been documented. In this paper, we describe open loop controllers for our small robot to climb and descend regular stairs. The reliability is 90% (9/10) for climbing and 100% (10/10) for descending, based on ten successive trials. Specif...

The aim of this study was to investigate the biomechanics and motor co-ordination in humans during stair climbing at different inclinations. Ten normal subjects ascended and descended a five-step staircase at three different inclinations (24 degrees, 30 degrees, 42 degrees ). Three steps were instrumented with force sensors and provided 6 dof ground reactions. Kinematics was analysed by a camer...

This report outlines the development of the control software used with the bioloid robots in the Humanoid Olympics subject. The Humanoid Olympics entails a competition between 2 teams, whereby both teams are provided with identical hardware of small ”bioloid” robots, and they must compete against each other in 3 events: running race, stair climbing and fighting. This software presented in this ...

Understanding joint kinetics during activities of daily living furthers our understanding of the factors involved in joint pathology and the effects of treatment. In this study, we examined hip and knee joint kinetics during stair climbing in 35 young healthy subjects using a subject-specific knee model to estimate bone-on-bone tibiofemoral and patello-femoral joint contact forces. The net knee...