Laboratory for the Study and Simulation of Human Movement: Activites

Traumatic Brain Injury Data Collection Complete

(March 14, 2012) Our laboratory has completed data collection at the National Institutes of Health. We would like to give a huge thank you to all of our participants. Many of whom travelled a long distance, and took time out of their day to make the journey to Bethesda.

CHHS Research Day

(March 25, 2011) The college of Health and Human Services will be hosting a research day, in which researchers in the college can present their research in a public forum in Dewberry Hall. Our lab will be present to display our work.

TBI Group Visit

(March 21, 2011) Traumatic Brain Injury group will be revisiting the lab to see our progress with the haptic scenarios and give their insight into how we can improve our investigation on TBI.

GMU Celebration of Achievements 2010

(November 3, 2010) The provost and the vice president for research and economic development hosted a reception to celebrate the research, scholarly, and creative achievements of 2010. Outstanding undergraduate and graduate researchers were invited to present their work. Nalini Vishnoi and Jake Scott attended to present the laboratory's research.

TBI Group Visit

(October 30, 2009) Traumatic Brain Injury group will be visiting the lab to see what work we are doing and give their insight into how we can improve our investigation on TBI.

Laboratory Demo

(October 26, 2009) We are hosting a open house of sorts to various supporters and those that are associated in some form with Labratory. We will show demos and discuss the work that we are doing. There will be plenty of time for questions, answers, and discussion.

Engineering Building Dedication and Open House

(October 2, 2009) A ribbon cutting ceremony of the new Engineering Building occured on October 2nd at 3:00 PM. Directly following the ceremony there was an Open House from 3:30 till 5:00. During which time people were encouraged to walk-through the new building and view demonstrations of the various labs in the building. Our lab space was open to the public to try demonstrations including: spelling words with virtual letter blocks and cleaning up a virtual workbench. We also showed and described some of our equipment that the lab has at our disposal (Equipment).

Dr. Park from NIH Visits

(August 12, 2009) Dr. Hyung Park, a member of the Warren Grant Magunson Clinical Center at the NIH, visted the labratory to discuss his work his previous work, and to review our labratory. He talked about the robots that he has constructed and his perspective on the field of rehabilitation robots. He also looked over our haptic demonstrations and offered advice on how to proceed with haptic guidance for movement recovery. We are looking forward to more meetings with Dr. Park

Dr. Sonies from NIH Visits

(July 2, 2009) Dr. Barbara Sonies, SLP, a member of the Warren Grant Magunson Clinical Center at the NIH, visted the labratory to discuss the traumatic brain injury project. She reviewed the existing haptic demonstrations and gave useful suggestions on how to proceed with the project. She also identified some key design issues that should be considered when creating new software for the project

Taste of Arlington

(May 17, 2009) “Taste of Arlington” is an annual community event in Arlington, Virginia, where local NSF researchers are invited to demonstrate their projects to the community at large. The Laboratory for the Study and Simulation of Human Movement displayed three posters designed by Younhee Kim, Nalini Vishnoi, and Gene Shuman respectively. The researchers gave members of the community an opportunity to try letter writing and object manipulation with haptic guidance.

Laboratory Calendar

CNRM Presentation 2010

(April 4, 2011) Dr. Gerber will present the laboratory's work to members of the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Annual Retreat Rockville, Maryland. She described the labratory's overall goals and the work done involved with Traumatic Brain Injury.

NVTC University Technology Exhibition

(February 24, 2011) Dr. Duric presented the lab's research as representatives of George Mason University (Slides here). For more information on the Nothern Virginia Technology Concil University Tech Exhibit please visit the link to their website. The Washington Post wrote an article on the day's events: article here.

CNRM Presentation

(April 19, 2010) Dr. Gerber presented the laboratory's work to members of the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Annual Retreat Rockville, Maryland. She described the labratory's overall goals and the work done involved with Traumatic Brain Injury.

NASA Langley Research Center Presentation

(July 23, 2009) Cody Narber presented his work to members of the Human Factors group and LARSS students at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He described the labratory's overall goals and his work with the haptic technology. His abstract and slides follow:

"Haptic technology has become an integral aspect of virtual environments and is now a major research area for rehabilitation/training applications. We have built several demonstrations that illustrate haptic use in task-based virtual environments as well as its use as a guiding/helping force to accomplish the given task. We have constructed a preliminary framework for designing applications to be used for training and testing the subject's capabilities. This presentation discusses several subjects' observed challenges with the haptic and ways in which these problems are addressed. The designed framework is object-oriented and integrates several libraries to expedite graphic, haptic, and user-interface coding. Several third-party applications are used in conjunction with the code in order to simplify model building and texture mapping. The overall design of the framework is described in more detail as well as future improvements and applications." [pdf]

Thomas Jefferson High School Presentation

(May 28, 2009) Dr. Zoran Duric and Cody Narber gave a presentation on the labratory's main goals and challenges to students at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Arlington, Virginia. They also demonstrated a haptic virtual environment which the students could interact with.

GMU Innovations 2009

(April 29, 2009) Nalini Vishnoi presented her work on translating unencumbered movement data collected from electromagnetic sensors(EMS) to a force-driven haptic workspace to fellow students and the general public at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. A demonstration of the haptic utilizing the transformed data and a poster were on display at the event. Her abstract follows:

"Rehabilitation of people experiencing difficulties with fine motor activities is an active and challenging area of research. Our goal is to answer whether force feedback devices (haptics) can be applied to improve hand functions. In our research we use Motionstar 2 wireless system to capture unencumbered 3D motions of a normal person’s hand while performing functional activities, such as writing. The captured motion is then transformed to the haptic (Omni) coordinate system so that it can be used to guide a subject’s hand through a desired movement. A subject is typically not shown the movement trajectory. They only perceive it through the proprioceptive interface with the haptic. After a few repetitions the subject is asked to perform the activity without the haptic guidance, e.g. write a letter. The result can be then compared with the known trajectory to observe the differences between guided and unguided movement."

Haptic Overview Video

This program demonstrates our lab's merging of several technologies including Qt, Maya, OpenGL, and OpenHaptics. This program can load in any .obj file (as created in Maya) for rendering and force-feedback as well as track the user's movement. The goal of this demo, is to show off the capabilities of the Haptic device for future projects as well as create an extendable QHapticWidget class that supports all features of these different technologies to expedite future coding.

Guiding Hand Video

The goal of this demo is to illustrate how the haptic can be used to assist people with disabilities in learning fine motor tasks, such as writing. We use electromagnetic sensors (MotionStar Wireless2) to capture unencumbered movements performed by a `normal' individual. The captured movement is translated to the haptic coordinate system with the use of a table-top centered frame as an intermediate frame. The translated movement is then fed into our haptic system, which varies the exerted force as a function of trainee performance. Our demonstration will use the Phantom Omni for the simulation of these writing tasks, and it will also provide visual feedback of the desired and user trajectories.

RECENT ACTIVITIES TBI Data Collected CHHS Research Day TBI Group Visit GMU CoA TBI Group Visit Laboratory Demo Building Dedication Dr. Park Visits Dr. Sonies Visits Taste of Arlington CALENDAR Laboratory Calendar PRESENTATIONS CNRM Presentation NVTC Tech Exhibit CNRM Presentation NASA LaRC Presentation TJ HS Presentation GMU Innovations 2009 VIDEOS Haptic Overview Guiding Hand		Traumatic Brain Injury Data Collection Complete (March 14, 2012) Our laboratory has completed data collection at the National Institutes of Health. We would like to give a huge thank you to all of our participants. Many of whom travelled a long distance, and took time out of their day to make the journey to Bethesda. CHHS Research Day (March 25, 2011) The college of Health and Human Services will be hosting a research day, in which researchers in the college can present their research in a public forum in Dewberry Hall. Our lab will be present to display our work. TBI Group Visit (March 21, 2011) Traumatic Brain Injury group will be revisiting the lab to see our progress with the haptic scenarios and give their insight into how we can improve our investigation on TBI. GMU Celebration of Achievements 2010 (November 3, 2010) The provost and the vice president for research and economic development hosted a reception to celebrate the research, scholarly, and creative achievements of 2010. Outstanding undergraduate and graduate researchers were invited to present their work. Nalini Vishnoi and Jake Scott attended to present the laboratory's research. TBI Group Visit (October 30, 2009) Traumatic Brain Injury group will be visiting the lab to see what work we are doing and give their insight into how we can improve our investigation on TBI. Laboratory Demo (October 26, 2009) We are hosting a open house of sorts to various supporters and those that are associated in some form with Labratory. We will show demos and discuss the work that we are doing. There will be plenty of time for questions, answers, and discussion. Engineering Building Dedication and Open House (October 2, 2009) A ribbon cutting ceremony of the new Engineering Building occured on October 2nd at 3:00 PM. Directly following the ceremony there was an Open House from 3:30 till 5:00. During which time people were encouraged to walk-through the new building and view demonstrations of the various labs in the building. Our lab space was open to the public to try demonstrations including: spelling words with virtual letter blocks and cleaning up a virtual workbench. We also showed and described some of our equipment that the lab has at our disposal (Equipment). Dr. Park from NIH Visits (August 12, 2009) Dr. Hyung Park, a member of the Warren Grant Magunson Clinical Center at the NIH, visted the labratory to discuss his work his previous work, and to review our labratory. He talked about the robots that he has constructed and his perspective on the field of rehabilitation robots. He also looked over our haptic demonstrations and offered advice on how to proceed with haptic guidance for movement recovery. We are looking forward to more meetings with Dr. Park Dr. Sonies from NIH Visits (July 2, 2009) Dr. Barbara Sonies, SLP, a member of the Warren Grant Magunson Clinical Center at the NIH, visted the labratory to discuss the traumatic brain injury project. She reviewed the existing haptic demonstrations and gave useful suggestions on how to proceed with the project. She also identified some key design issues that should be considered when creating new software for the project Taste of Arlington (May 17, 2009) “Taste of Arlington” is an annual community event in Arlington, Virginia, where local NSF researchers are invited to demonstrate their projects to the community at large. The Laboratory for the Study and Simulation of Human Movement displayed three posters designed by Younhee Kim, Nalini Vishnoi, and Gene Shuman respectively. The researchers gave members of the community an opportunity to try letter writing and object manipulation with haptic guidance. Laboratory Calendar CNRM Presentation 2010 (April 4, 2011) Dr. Gerber will present the laboratory's work to members of the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Annual Retreat Rockville, Maryland. She described the labratory's overall goals and the work done involved with Traumatic Brain Injury. NVTC University Technology Exhibition (February 24, 2011) Dr. Duric presented the lab's research as representatives of George Mason University (Slides here). For more information on the Nothern Virginia Technology Concil University Tech Exhibit please visit the link to their website. The Washington Post wrote an article on the day's events: article here. CNRM Presentation (April 19, 2010) Dr. Gerber presented the laboratory's work to members of the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Annual Retreat Rockville, Maryland. She described the labratory's overall goals and the work done involved with Traumatic Brain Injury. NASA Langley Research Center Presentation (July 23, 2009) Cody Narber presented his work to members of the Human Factors group and LARSS students at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He described the labratory's overall goals and his work with the haptic technology. His abstract and slides follow: "Haptic technology has become an integral aspect of virtual environments and is now a major research area for rehabilitation/training applications. We have built several demonstrations that illustrate haptic use in task-based virtual environments as well as its use as a guiding/helping force to accomplish the given task. We have constructed a preliminary framework for designing applications to be used for training and testing the subject's capabilities. This presentation discusses several subjects' observed challenges with the haptic and ways in which these problems are addressed. The designed framework is object-oriented and integrates several libraries to expedite graphic, haptic, and user-interface coding. Several third-party applications are used in conjunction with the code in order to simplify model building and texture mapping. The overall design of the framework is described in more detail as well as future improvements and applications." [pdf] Thomas Jefferson High School Presentation (May 28, 2009) Dr. Zoran Duric and Cody Narber gave a presentation on the labratory's main goals and challenges to students at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Arlington, Virginia. They also demonstrated a haptic virtual environment which the students could interact with. GMU Innovations 2009 (April 29, 2009) Nalini Vishnoi presented her work on translating unencumbered movement data collected from electromagnetic sensors(EMS) to a force-driven haptic workspace to fellow students and the general public at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. A demonstration of the haptic utilizing the transformed data and a poster were on display at the event. Her abstract follows: "Rehabilitation of people experiencing difficulties with fine motor activities is an active and challenging area of research. Our goal is to answer whether force feedback devices (haptics) can be applied to improve hand functions. In our research we use Motionstar 2 wireless system to capture unencumbered 3D motions of a normal person’s hand while performing functional activities, such as writing. The captured motion is then transformed to the haptic (Omni) coordinate system so that it can be used to guide a subject’s hand through a desired movement. A subject is typically not shown the movement trajectory. They only perceive it through the proprioceptive interface with the haptic. After a few repetitions the subject is asked to perform the activity without the haptic guidance, e.g. write a letter. The result can be then compared with the known trajectory to observe the differences between guided and unguided movement." Haptic Overview Video This program demonstrates our lab's merging of several technologies including Qt, Maya, OpenGL, and OpenHaptics. This program can load in any .obj file (as created in Maya) for rendering and force-feedback as well as track the user's movement. The goal of this demo, is to show off the capabilities of the Haptic device for future projects as well as create an extendable QHapticWidget class that supports all features of these different technologies to expedite future coding. Guiding Hand Video The goal of this demo is to illustrate how the haptic can be used to assist people with disabilities in learning fine motor tasks, such as writing. We use electromagnetic sensors (MotionStar Wireless2) to capture unencumbered movements performed by a `normal' individual. The captured movement is translated to the haptic coordinate system with the use of a table-top centered frame as an intermediate frame. The translated movement is then fed into our haptic system, which varies the exerted force as a function of trainee performance. Our demonstration will use the Phantom Omni for the simulation of these writing tasks, and it will also provide visual feedback of the desired and user trajectories.

Website designed and maintained by Cody Narber Room 2005 Engineering Bldg, 4400 University Dr, Fairfax, VA 22030