Riaan Stopforth

University of KwaZulu-Natal | ukzn · School of Mechanical Engineering

The performance of a low-cost 3D printed myoelectric prosthetic device known as the Touch Hand 4.5, at the 2020 Cybathlon competition is discussed. This device is under development as a low-cost prosthetic device for upper-limb amputees. The Touch hand team placed 13th out of 15 teams at the Cybathlon competition. By assessing the performance of th...

The popularity of myoelectric prosthetic hands increases as technological advances allows for the sophistication on prosthetic devices to become more affordable. A 3D printed myoelectric prosthetic hand was designed to ensure that it is cost-effective whilst having functionality similar to commercially available prosthetic hands. A three-fingered p...

This paper details the research conducted as vacation work undertaken for Touch Prosthetics during which an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset was used to analyse psychological priming effects on subjects’ concentration levels using visual and audial stimuli. The experimental procedure consists of a visual aspect and an audial aspect during which a...

Background The Touch Hand 4.5 is a highly customisable prosthetic hand, which features an optimised modular design of the Touch Hand 4. The Touch Hand team has developed a low-cost prosthetic hand, which has been built using an additive manufacturing process. The functionality and features are discussed that are crucial for amputees. Methods This...

It is with great pleasure to recognise all our partners in the merSETA Viro-Vent Innovation Skills Challenge who contributed to this publication: University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University KwaZulu Natal, University of Witwatersrand and National Technologies Implementation Platform. Thank you, Professor Sivarasu, fo...

It is with great pleasure to recognise all our partners in the merSETA Viro-Vent Innovation Skills Challenge who contributed to this publication: University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University KwaZulu Natal, University of Witwatersrand and National Technologies Implementation Platform. Thank you, Professor Sivarasu, fo...

It is with great pleasure to recognise all our partners in the merSETA Viro-Vent Innovation Skills Challenge who contributed to this publication: University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University KwaZulu Natal, University of Witwatersrand and National Technologies Implementation Platform. Thank you, Professor Sivarasu, fo...

It is with great pleasure to recognise all our partners in the merSETA Viro-Vent Innovation Skills Challenge who contributed to this publication: University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University KwaZulu Natal, University of Witwatersrand and National Technologies Implementation Platform. Thank you, Professor Sivarasu, fo...

Purpose The purpose of the research has been the primary consideration and evaluation of a cost effective, reliable, robust and simple process of radio frequency identification (RFID)-based stock control, asset management and monitoring of concrete safety bollards used in the road environment. Likewise, the consideration of the use of the same syst...

Newsletter on Medical research conducted in 2020/2021

Conductive additive manufacturing polylactic acid (PLA) filament is a material considered for sensors in the additive manufacturing of products, where conductive material, or sensors are infused into dual material printed parts. An example of these additive manufacturing parts could be a space-confined wearable medical device, which requires 3-dime...

This paper is part of ongoing research and serves to document the testing of the direction of origin of a rock striking and passing through a windscreen of a motor vehicle. The paper covers the literature reviewed for the tests, the design of the test rig and the documentation of the tests performed. The data from the tests was gathered and analyse...

This paper follows the development of a vision–based object detection and localization system for implementation in an autonomous aircraft for payload delivery. Application of such a system could see use in the delivery of packages to offshore freighter ships and inaccessible inland areas. This system was developed in a modular fashion, such that i...

These are some points to take note of programming methods and techniques when programming ATMEL chipset, or Arduino boards. CodeVisionAVR is used for the programming and compiling. This is used in the explanation of video 4 and video 5 of the playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcqOH2otRzD9skF_vmQAIF55RwNkxmDfF

Background Results of an experimental study are given involving high-impact ballistic tests using .22 inch diameter ammunition (commonly known only as .22 ammunition) with the target set up as a combination of different numbers and weights of Kevlar layers. These experimental tests are conducted as literature indicate that the .22 projectiles are n...

This paper presents a comparison of different .22, 9 mm Parabellum (9 mmP), .40 and .45 calibre ammunition. The different projectiles are analysed by performance, considering penetration depth into ballistic gel, while compared with the penetration depth after some clothing, such as a material used for jackets, are penetrated first. The velocity, k...

Research involving prosthetic devices is of growing interest, especially to develop low-cost devices, since there is technology available to develop advanced prosthesis at a much lower price than was possible in the past. Research was therefore performed to develop the concept of the mechanical design for a myoelectric prosthetic hand which is capa...

Research has been performed on the use of a robotic hand to be used as a UAV gripper and the contributions it would make to implement such a product with a UAV. An overview was performed on UAV grippers available for purchase to determine what contributions would be of greatest need from a newly developed UAV gripper. It was found that there is a l...

The study of South African distribution (Dx.) network’s load forecasting using recent and state of the art AI (machine learning, deep learning and ensemble deep learning) techniques, is limited. The impact of weather parameters on load forecasting performance of AI techniques in forecasting South African large power users is not well understood. Th...

YouTube video with steps to follow is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT9iyzxDZs8 ... This is a well engineered integration for a card that can folded infinity amount of times into itself, allowing you to have 4 different views. Business cards with 4 sides can be created from this concept. Furthermore, a 3D printed version of this ty...

Crash scenarios involving a rear end impact are common place internationally. Some of the most devastating collisions are often where a sedan collides into the rear of a commercial trailer, partial overlap. This type of crash is almost always with serious or fatal consequences. With a high number of these identified in a recent high profile Major C...

Skid control on a typical dry rural sandy, gravel road had been investigated, to identify the skid and braking characteristics. Experimental analysis was performed on a vehicle travelling at three different speeds (80, 60 and 40 km/h) and for each speed three different levels of tyre wear condition (tyres with tread as new, approximately 38% and wh...

Load forecasting is useful for various applications, including maintenance planning. The study of load forecasting using recent state-of-the-art hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) techniques is limited in South Africa (SA) and South African power distribution networks. This paper proposes a novel hybrid AI and DL South Afric...

Kevlar is the most commonly used material as armour for protection against bullets used in hand guns because of its impact resistance, high strength and low weight. These properties make Kevlar an ideal material to be used in bullet-proof vests as compared to other materials. In the present study, different numbers of layers of Kevlar with differen...

Purpose The purpose of this paper includes results of some of the tests involved for the design and implementation of low-cost crash anthropomorphics (ATPs) fitted with sensory systems to measure forces that would have been experienced by passengers in the vehicle, commonly used for public transport within South Africa. Design/methodology/approac...

Robots are increasingly being used in the industry. Businesses that use robots can produce products and provide services at lower costs and with higher quality. Some industries, like automotive manufacturing, have become dependent on robots. The impact of robots on society and the greater economy is not clear. Robots threaten the jobs of low-skille...

Research is being explored to consider using natural fibers for composite constructions, to be used for platforms such as in the marine engineering and tourism sector in Africa. Different natural fiber materials are considered and compared that were easily available. This paper investigates the tensile, bending, buckling, thermal conductivity and t...

Kevlar is a common and light weight material used for bulletproof vests. This paper presents the results that were observed for different .22, 9 mmP, .40, .45, .38 special, .357 and .308 ammunition penetrating 30 layers of 200 grams per square meter (GSM) Kevlar material, which are common for bullet proof vests. The projectile velocity, projectile...

Purpose A contactless electromyography (EMG) electrodes design and development for prosthetics, particularly the Touch Hand 3, was the main objective of this paper. The correlation between EMG electrodes and patch antenna are described, with the problem relating to the dimensions of the covidien electrodes. The purpose of this paper is to improve...

Rescue operations require technology to assist the rescue process. The robotic technology in these missions is becoming very important. The important aspects investigated in this study are the integration of a mechatronic system that will allow for a robotic platform with a vision system. The research collaboration between Argentina and South Afric...

Results comparing different self defence ammunition and penetration characteristics when fired into ballistic gel, or first through jacket material and then into the ballistic gel. The impact and kinetic energy of the range of ammunition are also shown. The analysis of the results will be published soon.

Although three million people around the world suffer from the lack of one or both upper limbs 80% of this number is located within developing countries. While prosthetic prices soar with technology 3D printing and low cost electronics present a sensible solution for those that cannot afford expensive prosthetics. The electronic and control design...

With continuous advancements on active prosthetics the detection of the user's intention becomes the new technological bottleneck. While electromyography (EMG) is widely used to detect individual muscular contributions, sweat and relative sensor movements degrade the quality of the signal over time. In this paper, we bypass the problems created wit...

This paper serves to document the development of the crash test automation system and the steer-induced loss of control test of a Toyota Quantum minibus. The paper covers the literature reviewed for the sake of the crash test, design of the crash test automation system, scale test of the vehicle, documentation of three crash tests performed on the...

The public healthcare system in South Africa is in need of urgent attention in no small part because there has been an escalation in the number of stroke victims which could be due to the increase in hypertension in this urbanizing society. There is a growing need for physiotherapists and occupational therapists in the country, which is further hin...

Disabled people require assistance with the motion of their lower limbs to improve rehabilitation. Exoskeletons used for lower limb rehabilitation are highly priced and are not affordable to the lowerincome sector of the population. This paper describes an exoskeleton lower limb system that was designed keeping in mind that the cost must be as low...

South Africa was the first country in the world to initiate regulations for the training and issuing of Remote Pilot Licenses (RPL), which are accredited by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), on the 1 st of July 2015. After a year, there are still a lot of questions and discrepancies as to whether there is a legitimate need for t...

Vehicle simulators aim to provide the user with a driving experience that replicates the sensations experienced in a real vehicle. An important aspect is the replication of motion cues. The replication of motion cues in the vehicle simulator is limited by platform workspace and the selected position control systems performance. In this work a Matla...

http://www.developingworldrobotics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/IEEE-Africon-forum-Riaan-Stopforth.pdf

http://www.developingworldrobotics.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Hoffman-IEEE-Africon-forum-RASA.pdf

The study of cooperation in heterogeneous robot teams has evolved due to the engineering and economic benefits attribute as well as the existence of diversities in homogeneous robot teams. The challenge of cooperation in these systems is a result of the task taxonomies and fundamental abilities of each robot in the team; there is therefore a need f...

This paper presents a fuzzy logic method and experimental investigation to determine distribution power systems loading measurements accuracy. The method is applied on loading measurements associated with a real South African power systems network, and includes manufacturing supply loading measurements. The results show fuzzy logic as an efficient...

Technological advancements have created a dependency on robotic systems to meet the daily needs of society. These advancements force an increase in the integration of humans and machines when considering equipment within working environments. Research has shown that current students are more prone to become passive users of engineering technology w...

The design of robotic systems involves implementation of Mechatronic Engineering principles stemming from the integration of Mechanical, Electronic and Computer engineering. The diverse nature of this integration poses a challenge for established and novice researchers to specialize within these fields. Collaboration between researchers and institu...

An endoscopic robot capable of assisting medical professionals in the public health sector by providing imaging and biopsy functionalities during Gastrointestinal Tract (GIT) procedures at a reduced cost, was to be designed. The endoscope was designed using soft robotic technology and to use a novel approach to provide robust and precise control ov...

Robots are widely used as a vehicle to spark interest in science and technology in learners. A number of initiatives focus on this issue, for instance, the Roberta Initiative, the FIRST Lego League, the World Robot Olympiad and RoboCup Junior. Robotic competitions are valuable not only for school learners but also for university students, as the Ro...

This paper presents the first cross-continental collaborative robotic event based around education. It was entitled R2T2 and it involved more than 100 children from Europe and Africa. Based on remote programming, video streaming feedback, and a scenario of collaborative space rescue, R2T2 focused on pedagogical elements that are fundamentally diffe...

In order to achieve cooperative success in a distributed network of robots, a software service commonly known as the middleware layer, must be utilized. The middleware can be seen as the "glue" that links the technology in the robotic network together. It is designed in such a manner that allows for the integration of robots to the network, especia...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the electronic design of the Touch Hand: a low-cost electrically powered prosthetic hand. The hand is equipped with an array of sensors allowing for position control and haptic sensation. Pressure sensors are used on the fingertips to detect grip force. A temperature sensor placed in the fingertip is used to measu...

Cooperative multiple robot networks have become a popular area of research in the past two decades due to the advantages of distributed networking systems as well as the potential benefits of robot teams working toward common goals. In advanced manufacturing environments, these benefits include the reduction of production bottleneck conditions duri...

The Touch Hand II is a desktop 3D printed prosthetic hand that has been developed to improve on the first design iteration, in order to reach the goal of providing transradial amputees with a low-cost alternative prosthetic hand, in comparison to commercial options. The powered grip strength, closing/opening times, mass, power usage, aesthetics, st...

Robots assist rescuers in search and rescue operations. An area of research that can significantly benefit search and rescue operations, if integrated, is cooperative robotics, since a multi-robot team can cover a vast area more efficiently than a single robot system. The research discussed in this paper focuses on the need for cooperative search a...

The control of the Touch Hand: a low-cost electrically powered prosthetic hand is explored in this paper. A novel Haptic User Interface is proposed and tested as a supplement for amputee-prosthetic EMG control. The performance of the prosthetic hand is tested through gripping tests. The hand is capable of performing a lateral grip of 3.7 N, a power...

The concept of a mechatronic bird has been developed by researchers over the years, to mimic the flight patterns of birds in nature. The developed mechatronics bird (MechaBird) described in this paper, explains the integration of the mechanical, electronic and software engineering that allows for the future evaluation of flight characteristics of a...

Cayley graph is used in representing the complex augmentation of autonomie EEG neural network with bipartite, trivalent and Erdos-Renyi models. The augmentation was used in determining an efficient communication, data and information transmission in EEG neural network. The geometric properties of EEG neural network augmented in autonomie Cayley neu...

EEG-controlled mechatronic and robotic systems provides additional flexibility and control option for both the disabled and able body persons. Providing adaptive control option through EEG as the source control signal requires efficient embedded technology system for EEG feature and artefact extraction toward robot motion control. The encoding and...

The design and manufacture of a low cost, modular prosthetic hand is discussed in detail in this chapter. A fully actuated hand was developed with individually actuated fingers. A wrist was designed and manufactured to allow for a single degree of freedom, which allows for the rotation of 180 degrees. An experimental upper arm was developed using a...

People who have lost a leg have a diminished capacity to complete daily tasks. While prosthetic limbs are not a new field, adjustability of such limbs is proposed to increase the life span of the prosthesis. The increased life span of a prosthetic limb will greatly decrease the cost an amputee has to spend over the years on prosthetics; the need fo...

The advancements of technology allows for development of robots for that can improve human lives and safety. One such application is search and rescue mission using unmanned ground vehicles, underwater vehicles and air vehicles. This paper present a Haar Cascade full body detection model developed for human detection in mine search and rescue appli...

This chapter investigates the method of chaos control namely the Ott-Grebogi-Yorke method. In non-chaotic systems, large system parameteri changes are required for performance changes. A sagittal plane biped model which is capable of exhibiting periodic and chaotic locomotion was researched and investigated. The locomotion was either periodic or ch...

Thermal endurance of sandwich panels made of a Kevlar fabric/phenolic composite material has been studied via flame tests. The panels are to be used for the protection of the electronic instruments of robots used for Urban Search and Rescue which are employed under severely adverse operational conditions. As such it is important to determine the ti...

Humans are involved with accidents in manufacturing environments. A possibility to prevent humans from these scenarios is, to introduce humanoid robots within these industrial areas. This paper investigates the control scenario and environments required at a small scale level, with the use of the Robosapien robot. The Robosapien robot is modified t...

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of cooperative robots. A team of multiple robot agents can accomplish tasks much faster and more efficiently than single robot systems. Advanced manufacturing systems use robots for machining and material handling purposes. Mobile robots in these environments have proven to increase ma...

Positioning and navigation data for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are extracted using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and the Inertial Navigation System (INS) integrated with an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The integration of quaternion with direction cosine matrix (DCM) with the aim of obtaining high accuracy with complete system indepe...

South African heavy vehicles are currently designed according to suggested standards designed and enforced by the National Department of Transport (DoT); these standards are regulated in terms of mass, dimensions and vehicle configuration. However, the current prescriptive standards leave little room for innovation in terms of heavy vehicle design....

The use of autonomic neural network in the control of smart machines using bio-signals has created the need for advancements in autonomic neural network in EEG signal extraction management. The advancements made in using human cognition for robotic control have increased possibilities once imagined in the field of robotics. The focus of the study i...