Applied Bionics and Biomechanics
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Acceptance rate10%
Submission to final decision160 days
Acceptance to publication25 days
CiteScore2.000
Journal Citation Indicator0.380
Impact Factor2.2

Different Dual-Task Paradigm Reduce Postural Control Ability and Dynamic Stability of Healthy Young Adults during Stair Descent

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 Journal profile

Applied Bionics and Biomechanics publishes original research articles as well as review articles that seek to understand the mechanics of biological systems, or that use the functions of living organisms as inspiration for the design of new devices.

 Editor spotlight

Chief Editor, Professor Qiguo Rong, is the Vice Chair of the Department of Mechanics and Engineering Science at Peking University, China. His research focuses on the biomechanical behaviors of musculoskeletal systems.

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Research Article

Adaptive Approximation Sliding-Mode Control of an Uncertain Continuum Robot with Input Nonlinearities and Disturbances

This paper develops an adaptive nonsingular fast terminal sliding-mode control (ANFTSMC) scheme for the continuum robot subjected to uncertain dynamics, external disturbances, and input nonlinearities (e.g., actuator deadzones/faults). Concretely, a function approximation technique (FAT) is utilized to estimate unknown robot dynamics and actuator deadzones/faults online. Furthermore, a disturbance observer (DO) is devised to make up for unknown external disturbances. Then, an ANFTSMC scheme combined with FAT and DO is developed, to expedite the restoration of the stability for the continuum robot. The proposed ANFTSMC not only can retain the benefits of traditional terminal sliding-mode control (TSMC), containing easy enforcement, quick response, and robustness to uncertainties but also dispose of the latent singularity for traditional faster TSMC designs. Afterward, the simulation results show that the proposed controller can effectively improve the trajectory tracking accuracy of the continuum robot, and the tracking root-mean-square errors are 0.0115 and 0.0128 rad. Finally, the effectiveness of ANFTSMC scheme is validated by experiments.

Research Article

Electromechanical Coupling Model for Ionic Liquid Gel Soft Actuators

A soft robot is composed of soft materials, which exhibit continuous deformation and driving structure integration and can arbitrarily change shapes and sizes over wide ranges. It shows strong adaptability to unstructured environments and has broad application prospects in military reconnaissance, medical rescues, agricultural production, etc. Soft robots based on ionic electroactive polymers (EAPs) have low-driving voltages, large-actuation displacements, fast responses, light weights, and low powers and have become a hot research field of bionic robots. Ionic liquid gels (ILGs) are new ionic EAPs. In this study, a new soft actuator was designed based on an ILG, and the electromechanical coupling model of an ILG soft actuator was studied in detail. Based on the system transfer function method, a mechatronic coupling model for the soft actuator was developed. According to the material characteristics and current response law of the ILG-containing EAP, an equivalent circuit model was used to describe transfer of the output current and input voltage. Based on the equivalent transformer model for ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) actuators proposed by Claudia Bonomo, the electromechanical coupling equation and a driving equation of the ILG soft actuator were established. The least-squares method was used with the coupling model of an ILG soft actuator to identify the system parameters for the model, and the effects of the structural parameters on the end displacement and driving force of the soft actuator were analyzed.

Research Article

SHAKF-PU: Sage–Husa Adaptive Kalman Filtering-Based Pedestrian Characteristic Parameter Update Mechanism for Enhancing Step Length Estimation in Pedestrian Dead Reckoning

Step length estimation (SLE) is the core process for pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) for indoor positioning. Original SLE requires accurate estimations of pedestrian characteristic parameter (PCP) by the linear update, which may cause large distance errors. To enhance SLE, this paper proposes the Sage–Husa adaptive Kalman filtering-based PCP update (SHAKF-PU) mechanism for enhancing SLE in PDR. SHAKF has the characteristic of predicting the trend of historical data; the estimated PCP is closer to the true value than the linear update. Since different kinds of pedestrians can influence the PCP estimation, adaptive PCP estimation is required. Compared with the classical Kalman filter, SHAKF updates its Q and R parameters in each update period so the estimated PCP can be more accurate than other existing methods. The experimental results show that SHAKF-PU reduces the error by 24.86% compared to the linear update, and thus, the SHAKF-PU enhances the indoor positioning accuracy for PDR.

Research Article

Nanoparticle Delivery in Microvascular after Cerebral Ischemia: A Simulation Study

Nanodrug delivery systems have been used in the diagnosis and treatment of ischemic stroke. However, the delivery mechanisms of nanoparticles within microvascular after cerebral ischemia have not been systematically revealed. This study aims to investigate the binding of different nanoparticles to the walls of ischemic brain microvascular through numerical simulations. In this study, 3D models of cerebral microvascular based on ischemic pathological changes are constructed. After building the mesh of microvascular, computational fluid dynamics is used to simulate blood flow and nanoparticle delivery. The simulation results show that the total amount of binding nanoparticles with small size is higher than that with large size. The large-sized nanoparticles are more easily delivered to the stenosis. The density of the nanoparticles has no significant effect on delivery. Furthermore, the study finds that the presence of red blood cells can significantly enhance the delivery efficiency of nanoparticles. In addition to evaluating the forces exerted on the nanoparticles, the impact of the binding affinity of the modified ligand on nanoparticles to the target receptor on delivery is investigated. In summary, selecting suitable nanoparticles according to different targets will improve the delivery efficiency of nanodrugs. The microvascular delivery model of nanoparticles proposed in this study may be helpful in the design of nanoparticles for diagnosis and treatment of cerebral ischemia.

Research Article

A Study of Racket Weight Adaptation in Advanced and Beginner Badminton Players

The jump smash is the most aggressive manoeuvre in badminton. Racket parameters may be the key factor affecting the performance of jump smash. Previous studies have focused only on the biomechanical characteristics of athletes or on racket parameters in isolation, with less observation of the overall performance of the human-racket system. This study aims to explore the effects of different racket weights on neuromuscular control strategies in advanced and beginner players. Nonnegative matrix factorisation (NMF) was used to extract the muscle synergies of players when jumping smash using different rackets (3U, 5U), and K-means clustering was used to obtain the fundamental synergies. Uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analyses were used to establish links between synergy and motor performance, and surface electromyography (sEMG) was mapped to each spinal cord segment. The study found significant differences () in the postural muscles of skilled players and significant differences () in the upper-limb muscles of beginners when the racket weight was increased. Advanced players adapt to the increase in racket weight primarily by adjusting the timing of the activation of the third synergy. Combined synergy in advanced players is mainly focused on the backswing, while that in beginners is mainly focused on the frontswing. This suggests that advanced players may be more adept at utilising the postural muscles and their coordination with the upper-limb muscles to adapt to different rackets. In addition, the motor experience can help athletes adapt more quickly to heavier rackets, and this adaptation occurs primarily by adjusting the temporal phase and covariation characteristics of the synergies rather than by increasing the number of synergies.

Research Article

Assessment of Load Manual Lifting among Shelf-Stoking Workers in Chain Stores: A Cross-Sectional Study

In Iranian stores, shelf workers, in addition to shelf-stocking, perform diverse tasks, such as working as a cashier, cleaning, barcode reading, labeling goods, and entering the price with the portable data terminal (PDT). Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal symptoms (WMSs) and assess load manual lifting among shelf-stoking workers. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 101 shelf-stoking workers (60 males and 41 females) in chain stores at Shiraz city, Iran. The subjects were selected by cluster sampling from chain stores in Shiraz city, namely Refah, Canbo, Soroush, and Tirazis. Then, the required number of samples was selected and entered into the study from each cluster in proportion. The Persian version of the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health–variable lifting index method were used to collect the required data. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 22 using the Mann–Whitney U test, Spearman’s correlation coefficient, and linear regression. Ankles/feet, lower back, and knees had the highest prevalence of WMSs among the participants. About 70.3% of workers had a VLI higher than 1. There was an association between gender and VLI. The VLI was higher in males than females. The study’s findings revealed that the medians of the VLI were significantly different among participants with/without upper back symptoms during 12 months prior to the study and among participants with/without lower back symptoms during 7 days prior to the study. According to the linear regression analysis, gender and lower back symptoms during 7 days prior to the study remained in the model and were associated with the VLI. The findings revealed that the back region of the shelf-stoking workers is prone to work-related musculoskeletal disorders. In addition, based on the results, gender and lower back symptoms during the 7 days prior to the study were predicting variables for VLI. This study provides an overview of pain/discomfort and postural load in shelf-stoking workers. Since the principles of ergonomics for the placement and layout of shelves are the same in all stores, the findings of the present study can be used in other stores.

Applied Bionics and Biomechanics
 Journal metrics
See full report
Acceptance rate10%
Submission to final decision160 days
Acceptance to publication25 days
CiteScore2.000
Journal Citation Indicator0.380
Impact Factor2.2
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