Facilities
Cleveland State University
CSU is a member of OhioLINK, a large network of on-line and printed books and scholarly
articles. OhioLINK includes access to the entire IEEE Xplore database and all journals published
by Elsevier, Springer, AIAA, ASME, and most other relevant publishers. CSU is also a member of
the Microsoft Developers’ Network (MSDN) Academic Alliance, which makes professional
versions of dozens of software titles available to support research.
The CSU College of Engineering consists of five departments: Chemical and Biomedical
Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering, and Engineering Technology. The college offers seven Bachelor’s
degrees, nine master’s degrees, and one college-wide doctoral degree. The college has 51 fulltime faculty and many adjunct faculty. Faculty research is funded by a large variety of external
sponsors, including local industry, NASA, NSF, DOT, DOE, NIH, AFRL, and DARPA. During an
average year, Engineering College faculty members write 6 books, 40 refereed journal articles,
and 70 refereed papers in conference proceedings, and generate $3 million in external research
funds. The Fenn College of Engineering maintains a large, permanently-staffed machine shop
and rapid prototyping equipment for the fabrication of customized hardware.
Dr. Simon, the PI of the proposed research, is the director of the Embedded Control Systems
Research Lab at CSU, where he and his students conduct research in control, optimization,
computer intelligence, and related areas. Dr. Simon has supervised 22 master’s theses and
doctoral dissertations in the last 10 years. Dr. Simon is presently supervising 6 master’s
students, 3 doctoral students, and 1 undergraduate honors student. His research lab includes
1,000 square feet of work space, a dozen Windows-based PCs, and associated hardware (e.g.,
instrumentation, embedded system development tools, networking equipment, electronic
prototyping equipment, and printers). Available software includes Microsoft Visual Studio and
Matlab.
Dr. Richter, co-PI of the proposed research, maintains a laboratory in the Mechanical
Engineering Department at CSU. Dr. Richter’s lab is equipped with networked computing
equipment, data acquisition equipment, sensors, electronic components, and workbench
instrumentation for general-purpose research. Dr. Richter’s lab includes research licenses for
Matlab and relevant toolboxes. In addition, Mathematica is available as a CSU site license.
Dr. Richter’s lab also houses CSU’s hip robot simulator, which will be used extensively in the
proposed research for prosthesis testing and comparisons with commercial prostheses (see
Section 2.4 in the Project Narrative).
Dr. van den Bogert, co-PI of the proposed research, is director of the Parker-Hannifin
Laboratory for Human Motion and Control at CSU. The laboratory is equipped with a 10-camera
motion capture system (Motion Analysis Corp.), a V-Gait instrumented treadmill with software
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controlled pitch and sway actuators (Motek Medical), a 16-channel wireless
EMG/accelerometer system (Delsys), and D-Flow software (Motek Medical) for real-time
control of experiments and real-time data processing. Software tools for musculoskeletal
modeling and simulation include OpenSim, Autolev, Matlab, IPOPT, and in-house code (Matlab
and C++) for predictive simulation via direct transcription of an open loop optimal control
problem. See Section 3.2 in the Project Narrative for additional details.
Recently acquired funding from the Wright Center for Sensor Systems Engineering is
currently being used to purchase additional gait study equipment for Dr. van den Bogert’s lab.
This additional equipment includes a portable metabolic system, treadmill modifications for
enhanced V-Gait perturbation capability, and commercial prosthetics for comparison studies
using CSU’s robotic hip (see Section 2.4 in the Project Narrative).
Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC)
VAMC research projects are conducted in conjunction with two national Veterans Affairs
Centers of Excellence in Rehabilitation Research and Development: the Cleveland Functional
Electrical Stimulation (FES) Center and the Advanced Platform Technology (APT) Center. The
Cleveland FES Center is a consortium between Case Western Reserve University (CWRU),
MetroHealth Medical Center (MHMC), and the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans
Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), which is dedicated to advancing the development and clinical
application of neuroprosthetic technology. The APT Center is a consortium of CWRU and the
VAMC with the mission of developing new rehabilitation technologies for crosscutting medical
purposes and making them available for pre-clinical or clinical testing.
Human movement research is conducted at the Motion Study Laboratory (MSL) or the
Advanced Prosthetics Laboratory (APL) located in the VAMC. All computer modeling and
movement simulations are performed in the High Performance Computing Laboratory located
in the VAMC.
The Motion Study Laboratory (MSL) occupies approximately 2100 square feet of space
in the VAMC. This facility was newly renovated in late 2007 and upgraded with state-of-the-art
instrumentation for the biomechanical, metabolic and functional assessment of human
movement. Central to this laboratory is a 70-foot walkway instrumented with force platforms, a
split-belt treadmill with force platforms, motion capture system, and multi-channel EMG and
other equipment for complete analysis of the biomechanics, motor control and physiology of
human performance. Multichannel microprocessor-based and computer-controlled surface and
percutaneous stimulation systems are available in the laboratory for clinical and experimental
work in functional electrical stimulation. The laboratory is outfitted for training patients in the
use of prostheses, including functional testing equipment, parallel bars, instrumented walkers,
mat tables, and a number of high-powered computers and associated software. This lab also
contains all equipment necessary for initial evaluation of potential research participants
(sensory probes, hand-held surface stimulators, electrodiagnostic test equipment,
goniometers). The laboratory is equipped to monitor exercise with electrical stimulation,
measure muscle strength and endurance and collect biomechanical data related to
neuroprosthesis performance.
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The Advanced Prosthetics Laboratory (APL) occupies approximately 1100 square feet of
space in the VAMC. This facility was newly constructed in late 2008 and furnished with stateof-the-art instrumentation for the biomechanical and functional assessment of human
movement. It is dedicated to the development and testing of systems that afford natural
control and sensory feedback to upper and lower limb prostheses and neuroprostheses.
Available equipment includes a Neurocom Balance Master system for probing the standing
stability of transtibial or transfemoral amputees, and a ten camera Vicon MX 40 digital motion
capture system with real-time output capabilities. This lab also houses a V-Gait system which is
a state-of-the-art computer assisted rehabilitation environment network. This system
integrates force plates, inertial, electromyographic and motion capture instrumentation for
investigating posture and gait in a virtual reality environment. The components include an
instrumented treadmill that runs in 2 modes (self-paced speed or predetermined speed), a 3x4
meter screen for visualizing the virtual reality environment, a sound system and custom drivers
to blend the images of the environment. The V-Gait uses D-Flow software to control and
synchronize the inputs and the collected data. The V-Gait also includes virtual reality
environment scenes and applications with the capability of developing custom virtual reality
applications through the D-Flow software.
The High-Performance Computing Laboratory at VAMC is a local computational
resource for musculoskeletal modeling, biomechanical simulation and stimulation controller
design work. The laboratory is a state-of-the-art computational facility occupying a 400 square
feet in the VAMC. The laboratory was completed and occupied in 2008 and serves as a central
resource for all high performance computing requirements of several researchers in the
surrounding institutions.
The Technical Development Laboratory (TDL) serves as a central engineering facility for
design and construction of all types of neuroprostheses, laboratory instrumentation and other
rehabilitation technologies for both the APT and FES Centers. The TDL also insures the electrical
safety of research participants and staff of the various laboratories within both Centers. Staff
include 8 engineers and engineering students with over 75 combined years in Engineering
Management, Quality Systems Management, MEMS device and process design and
prototyping, Software and Firmware Development, ASIC design for sensor interfacing, wireless
transmission, and data processing, as well as new materials investigation.
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