IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2017 - 25

Rejc, Šlajpah, Munih, and Mihelj, the
team that achieved third place using
a hybrid (wheel-track) wheelchair
design. This design includes four
independently steerable wheels, as
well as two rubber tracks that can be
lowered to the ground for additional
traction, for a total of 14 active degrees of freedom (DoF). The team
describes the wheelchair design,
experimental results from a stair-climbing test, and their subjective experience
with the Cybathlon.
The second WHL article is by the
team Nakajima, which achieved fourth
place. Their four-wheel-drive wheelchair is potentially attractive and useful
even for people without disabilities, as
the use of wheelchairs by people without disabilities could lead to better
understanding of disabilities. After
describing the hardware and software,
the team presents several measurements
from the tilted path and stair-climbing
challenges in the Cybathlon WHL race.
This special issue also includes two
articles from teams that participated
in the FES race. The first article, by
Wiesener and Schauer, presents their
modifications to a standard tricycle
and their applied electrical stimulation
pattern, which was triggered by lower limb angles estimated by inertial
sensors (rather than by the crank angle,
which is usually used). The authors
also summarize the training with the
pilot of their Team Hasomed as well
as their experiences from the FES
race itself.
In the second FES article, Bó, da
Fonseca, Guimarães, Fachin-Martins,
Paredes, Brindeiro, de Sousa, Dorado,
and Ramos describe the tricycle used
by Team Empowering Mobility and
Autonomy (EMA), which features
an intermediate position of the
pilot (partway between seated and
recumbent) to achieve more comfort
and fewer biomechanical disadvantages
than the seated position. The authors
present the stimulation profile used
and talk about how their pilot preferred
to directly control the intensity of the
stimulation at a fixed pulsewidth in
contrast to having a fixed intensity and
indirect control of the pulsewidth. In

their critical discussion of their training protocol and performance at the
Cybathlon, the authors emphasize the
importance of endurance training.
The EXO discipline is covered by
two articles. The team from the Florida
Institute for Human and Machine
Cognition developed an exoskeleton
that not only powers hip and knee
flexion of pilots with paraplegia but
also assists ankle dorsi/plantar flexion.
Griffin, Cobb, Craig, Daniel, van Dijk,
Gines, Krämer, Shah, Siebinga, Smith,
and Neuhaus first summarize the
design and control of this exoskeleton,
followed by a more detailed characterization of the leg trajectories used for
the different tasks of the EXO race.
Finally, the experience gained during
the training and race (the team placed
second) is described.
In the second EXO article, Choi, Na,
Jung, Rha, and Kong introduce the
design and control of their newly developed exoskeleton, which ranked
third at the Cybathlon. The actuation
system relies on the synchronization of
four motors. Forces are transmitted to
the knee joints by a specific biarticular
mechanism. The authors also summarize how their pilot familiarized and
trained with the exoskeleton as well as
how the team finally performed at
the Cybathlon.
Finally, the special issue also includes
two articles from the ARM race. The
first, by Piazza, Catalano, Godfrey,
Rossi, Grioli, Bianchi, Zhao, and Bicchi,
describes a hybrid hand prosthesis that
employs a shoulder harness to control a
19-DoF electrically powered, underactuated hand. This design can support
highly simplified control of the hand
with high robustness and adaptability.
Following the description of the design,
the team presents a detailed description
of the device's performance in different
subtasks of the race.
The second ARM article, by Ahmadizadeh, Merhi, Pousett, Sangha, and
Menon, presents an approach to prosthetic limb control that combines traditional electromyographic control with
force myography. Offline analysis is
used to study the impact of different
electromyogram features and different

force myography sensor configurations.
While no real-time results are presented, the detailed analysis of pattern
recognition possibilities serves as a valuable step toward future practical use.
These original articles by some of
the teams from Cybathlon 2016 are
complemented by short interviews with
two industrial
and two student
The Cybathlon 2016
teams (see the
"Industrial Actidemonstrated, in
vities" and "Stua comprehensive
dent's Corner"
columns). The
and entertaining
questions asked
manner, how people
ranged from the
challenges inwith disabilities can
volved in particemploy assistive
ipation to the
impact on their
devices.
own activities.
Overall, these
interviews highlight the diversity of
the participating teams as well as
the enthusiasm that they share for
the competition.
The Cybathlon 2016 demonstrated,
in a comprehensive and entertaining
manner, how people with disabilities can employ assistive devices. We
obtained valuable insights into the latest technologies and devices, including
their strengths and limitations. To further promote developments that will
overcome those limitations and to further facilitate communication between
the public, people with disabilities and
technology providers, ETH Zürich will
organize the second Cybathlon in May
2020. Until then, races in single disciplines will be organized in cooperation
with universities worldwide. Teams
will demonstrate their approaches at
conferences and share their experiences at panel discussions. For further
information, check out www.cybathlon
.ethz.ch.
The future will show whether the
Cybathlon can sustainably contribute to
the acceptance and applicability of assistive robotic devices; it certainly has the
potential. For the moment, we hope
that this special issue will help readers

DECEMBER 2017

(continued on page 122)
*

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

http://www.cybathlon http://www.ethz.ch

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2017