Mikel Diez

• University of the Basque Country

This paper presents a novel parallel manipulator capable of generating two translations (2T), inside a vertical plane, and two rotations (2R), about horizontal axes, which are required in aerospace, manufacturing and rehabilitation fields. These four degrees of freedom are reached by means of a unique RRU and three RSS kinematic chains connected to...

Gait and balance have a direct impact on patients’ independence and quality of life. Due to a higher life expectancy, the number of patients suffering neurological disorders has increased exponentially, with gait and balance impairments being the main side effects. In this context, the use of rehabilitation robotic devices arises as an effective an...

In this study, the novel mobile dynamometric platform, OREKA, was utilized to perform an extensive analysis of the centre of pressure behaviour during different tilt motion exercises. This platform is based on a parallel manipulator mechanism and can perform rotations around both horizontal axes and a vertical translation. A group of participants t...

This paper presents a synthesis method that leads to a novel family of 4-degrees of freedom (DOF) parallel manipulators (PM) capable of generating the two translations and two rotations (2T2R) required for balance rehabilitation, namely, two translations inside the sagittal plane and antero-posterior and medio-lateral rotations. The proposed synthe...

The measurement of the Center of Pressure (COP) of a patient on a dynamometric platform is one of the most recognized methods for evaluating patient balance during rehabilitation. In this work, the influence of an asymmetric platform design on the measurement of COP in static conditions has been analyzed for a rehabilitation machine with a mobile d...

In this paper, a novel parallel platform for balance testing called OREKA is used to analyze the Centre of Pressure movement of several subjects during tilting motions. The platform, based on the 3PRS architecture, is capable of rotations around both horizontal axes and a vertical translation. Several subjects have performed different exercises to...

One of the first rehabilitation exercises in a hemiplegic patient is the recovery of the trunk balance, as a previous stage for the gait training. In this paper, a solution to assist this task with a robotic device is proposed and discussed. It is based on a compliant parallel kinematics manipulator of 4 degrees of freedom, 3 rotations and a transl...

Accurate localization for autonomous vehicle operations is essential in dense urban areas. In order to ensure safety, positioning algorithms should implement fault detection and fallback strategies. While many strategies stop the vehicle once a failure is detected, in this work a new framework is proposed that includes an improved reconfiguration m...

Compliant mechanisms are widely used for instrumentation and measuring devices for their precision and high bandwidth. In this paper, the mechatronic model of a compliant 3PRS parallel manipulator is developed, integrating the inverse and direct kinematics, the inverse dynamic problem of the manipulator and the dynamics of the actuators and the con...

In the last few years, parallel manipulators are being increasingly studied and used for different applications. The performance of parallel manipulators is very sensitive to the geometric parameters, so it is essential to optimize them in order to obtain the desired function. We propose two optimization algorithms that consider the size and regula...

El posicionamiento por GPS en zonas urbanas densamente pobladas puede ser un reto, principalmente debido al bloqueo de señales por edificios o túneles. Es por ello que los vehículos autónomos necesitan implementar alternativas para estas situaciones mediante una estructura de localización tolerante a fallos. Este es un área de gran interés en la qu...

This work presents a neural model developed for a multivariable system with complex nonlinear dynamics, obtained through a tight methodology used both in simulation and in the real platform. In addition, this neural model has been studied and designed to meet the requirements of a predictive control strategy. A Twin-Rotor platform is used as an exa...

The consequence of the population aging in last decades has been an increase of age-related disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury or central nervous diseases, causing a deficiency in mobility and thus affecting the quality of life of adults [1, 2].

Changes carried out by the European Higher Education Area have allowed to design and develop new learning methodologies that focus on students as an active part of the education process. This allows to develop not only technical skills, but also the so-called soft skills. In addition, sustainability has become a key issue in recent years, being Edu...

Proteins are the macromolecules responsible for almost every function living organisms need to exist. These macromolecules, which resemble small mechanisms or robots, were discovered 200 years ago, and first seen in their functional form less than 60 years ago, and they represent one of the more challenging areas of study. Protein study is an incre...

One of the main advantages of parallel manipulators over serial manipulators is their capacity to achieve faster and more precise movements, which is why they are used in many industrial applications. A parallel manipulator is formed by two or more parallel sets of rigid elements connected in series, and the corresponding actuators. Nevertheless, a...

Parallel manipulators, especially those with outputs as one translation and two rotations (1T2R), are being increasingly studied. The kinematic chains of parallel manipulators share the loads and make the stiffness higher than the stiffness of serial manipulators with equivalent limbs. This high stiffness ensures a minimal deformation of the limbs,...

Parallel manipulators, especially those with outputs as a translation and two rotations (1T2R), are being increasingly studied. The 3PRS mechanism is a very typical example of this category, but it has peculiar kinematic characteristics caused by parasitic motions and by low orientation capability. To overcome these problems, new mechanisms are bei...

We report on a compact accelerometer built with strongly coupled multi-core optical fiber. The device was placed in cantilever position. An ultra-miniature seismic mass was used to tune the device sensitivity and operating frequency range.

In the field of parallel kinematics few designs use highly deformable elements to obtain the end effector movement. Most compliant mechanisms rely on notches or shape changes to simulate a standard kinematic joint. In this work a kinematic model of a simple parallel continuum mechanism that combines a deformable element and cable is presented. The...

The development of large machinery in the industry of the machine tool implies moving heavy structural components and pieces. The consequence is the apparition of inaccuracies at the tool tip during the motion due to the high inertial forces acting on the compliant machine. To predict the dynamic behavior of these machines, a three degree of freedo...

Continuum Parallel Robots are mechanical devices with closed loops where kinematic pairs have been eliminated and motion is obtained by large deformations of certain elements. Most compliant mechanisms use notches in thick elements to produce the effect of kinematic pairs. A few are designed so that slender elements can deform and produce the desir...

In this paper, a design methodology intended for the so-called cuspidal parallel manipulators is presented. The methodology is valid for three-degree-of-freedom planar or spatial parallel manipulators. The paper explains step-by-step a process to take advantage of a parallel manipulator that owns the cuspidality property, and thus, it can perform n...

Nowadays robots play an essential role in industry, developing several tasks in an easy way, enhancing the accuracy of the final product and reducing the executing time. Besides, modern robotic manipulators take part in many other fields, as for example, aerospace industry, several medical applications, gaming industry, and so on. In particular, th...

In this paper an educational and research software named GIM is presented. This software has been developed with the aim of approaching the difficulties students usually encounter when facing up to kinematic analysis of mechanisms. A deep understanding of the kinematic analysis is necessary to go a step further into design and synthesis of mechanis...

Protein simulation remains as one of the most difficult task for biologists, physicists or engineers. The huge computational requirements of the protein models makes it difficult to obtain simulations of big conformational changes on protein structure. Side chain modelization is a critical step when obtaining the protein structure model. The time s...

In this paper the authors approach the dimensional synthesis of parallel manipulators focusing on the evaluation of important entities belonging to the configuration space, such as workspace and joint space. In particular, 3-DoF manipulators that can perform non-singular transitions are considered, illustrating the procedure with a case study. The...

The detection of proteins secondary structures constitutes an essential task in the protein motion simulation. Secondary structures constitute rigid parts of the protein structure, hence, their detection is crucial so as to properly define the movement of the protein. During the simulation process, these rigid structures can be identified and, acco...

The aim of this work is to approach the difficulties students usually encounter when facing up to kinematic analysis of mechanisms. A deep understanding of the kinematic analysis is necessary to go a step further into design and synthesis of mechanisms. We can conclude from experience that supporting and complementing the theoretical lectures with...

Background The high demanding computational requirements necessary to carry out protein motion simulations make it difficult to obtain information related to protein motion. On the one hand, molecular dynamics simulation requires huge computational resources to achieve satisfactory motion simulations. On the other hand, less accurate procedures suc...

Most methodologies used for protein motion simulation either require a high computational cost, or the produced results do not fulfill kinematics requirements. For instance, molecular dynamics, which obtains the most accurate results, is hardly used to simulate proteins’ big conformational changes because of its huge computational requirements. Fas...

Protein motion simulation is still a troublesome problem yet to be solved, especially due to its high computational requirements. Accurate methodologies such as molecular dynamics have too much computational cost in order to simulate protein motion. On the other hand, less accurate procedures, such as interpolation methods, do not obtain realistic...

Protein motion simulation is still a troublesome problem yet to be solved, especially due to its high computational requirements. The procedure presented in this paper makes use of the proteins’ real degrees of freedom (DOFs). The procedure makes no use of any intermediate energy minimization processes that may alter the motion path or result in ve...

Protein folding remains as an impossible riddle biologist must solve. Its huge computational requirements make it difficult to obtain clues regarding protein folding nature. The procedure presented in this paper presents a fast algorithm capable of obtaining hundreds of intermediate positions between the unfolded and the folded structures of severa...

Proteins play an essential role in biochemical processes. Few years ago, a new viewpoint arose within protein researches, based on the parallelisms between proteins and mechanisms. In this paper the authors present an approach to obtain protein motion paths based on computational kinematic considerations. A potential energy field formula for potent...

Proteins play an essential role in the biological processes that take place in the human body. For this reason, it is very important to understand the molecular mechanisms involved. Recently a new approach, based on the parallelism between proteins and spatial mechanisms, has allowed methods to be developed to obtain atomic trajectories for protein...

In this article a methodology for simulating proteins function movement is presented. The procedure uses a potential energy feedback algorithm that without minizing the energy obtains succesive positions of the protein. before the simulation process, structures are normalized reducing the experimental methods produced errors. The procedure presents...

Proteins play an essential role in biochemical processes. Recently, a new viewpoint has arisen within protein researches, based on the parallelisms between proteins and mechanisms. In this paper the authors present new methodologies to obtain protein motion paths based in computational kinematic considerations. A Potential Energy field formula for...

Proteins play an essential role in biochemical processes. Recently, a new viewpoint has arisen within protein researches, based on the parallelisms between proteins and mechanism. In this paper the authors present a new approach to obtain protein motion paths based in computational kinematic considerations. Finally, simulation results for an specif...