A lot of activities happened after the summer of 2019. We had a successful project review meeting at EC in Nov 2019 and now preparing a consortium meeting at the hospital Servicio Andaluz de Salud (SAS) in February 2020.
During the first phase of the project, the work has been progressed according to the plan. The main activities have been focused on problem definition, technology investigation, and system conceptualization. A plan for the clinic procedures on data collection and system validation is also being established. All these activities constitute a solid basis for qualified technical work. So far, the project has fulfilled most of the initial objectives and the consortium has worked well showing good co-operation during the entire project.
In particular, regarding the overall technical objectives, the corresponding system requirements have been elicited and defined. The work is done on the basis of a systematic approach consisting of proposal analysis, literature study, interview of prosthetists, system concept elicitation, and final partner consensus. With such requirements, some key overall concepts relating to the socket design, sensor integration schemes, and clinical preferences are also defined. The main technical tasks and progress include the following:
- On the senor design: the basic design options and deployment schemes for QTSS sensors that provide the pressure measurement have been identified. Some prototypes of such sensors have been manufactured for evaluation and integration. The current work is focused on quantifying the performance figures of the QTSS sensor (regarding the operational range, measurement precision, and accuracy, etc.) through lab tests. A novel QTSS sensel design for shear and friction measurement has also been proposed with the first prototype being manufactured.
- On the embedded system platform: The first embedded system platform for the collection, processing, and communication of measurement data has been developed. This platform also provides support for the integration of some additional sensors for the measurement of gait cycles and ambient conditions. For developing an optimized data communication strategy, one major effort is now devoted to the problem definition in regard to a stipulation of the data structure, sampling and communication patterns. To this end, a mock-system that constitutes a functional prototype for model identification and sensor system validation has been created.
- On effective dynamic state estimation and comfort assessment: Work in this direction seeks to combine biomechanical models and AI methods for most effective state estimation, situation assessment, and socket design optimization. The ongoing work includes the formalization of measurement area within a socket in terms of a discretized grid map, the establishment of a knowledge base for the dynamic conditions and their causal relations with biomechanical properties underlying the comfort assessment.
- On the overall system integration: Currently, a preliminary overall functional architecture has been identified. The design of a database and a software-based HMI for prosthetic clinics has also been started with an analysis of the interaction scenarios. Requirements for the front end and back end development are identified.
In case you would like to contact the SocketSense, please use info@socketsense.eu. We are looking forward to your critics, innovations and suggestions! And please forward this newsletter to anyone that you might think have an interest in this project.
All the best
DeJiu Chen
Project Coordinator & Associate Professor, KTH