Cybathlon 2016: I urge Russian engineers to measure themselves in the first competition of cyborgs

Hi, Habrovchane!

Six months ago, an article about Cybatlon appeared here - the first international championship with the participation of people with heightened needs who use high-tech rehabilitation tools created by various teams of engineers. Participation in the competition can take any company or university team with the appropriate technology in one of six disciplines.
By taking part in the Championship, we would be able to demonstrate Russian achievements in the field of high-tech rehabilitation. And so, at the end of July, we sent a request from the first Russian team.
')



Now I would like to tell you how our team came to this decision and what tasks it sets for itself.

Start

For the first time I heard about Cybatlon in March of this year, and we almost immediately decided that we should participate in this competition. First of all, I was attracted by the ideological goal of the championship - to erase the limitations between science and people with heightened needs. The cybathlon should become a testing ground for new technologies, which will then scale to all those in need. And our goals here are completely matched.
We decided to take part in four of the six disciplines in which competitions will be held:

• Upper limb prostheses
• Exoskeleton complexes
• Automatic Wheelchairs
• Neural Interfaces

The choice was based on successes in each of the areas of both our team and other Russian companies or research teams. We decided to leave the lower limb prostheses and electrostimulation bikes the next time, because could not find partners with competence in these areas. And in the fall of 2015 there will be training “races” for testing equipment in real conditions, therefore, when analyzing the areas, we proceeded from the fact that the team should already have more or less working samples by this date.

Meet the organizers

Before applying, I decided to learn more about the format of the event, its organizers and the estimated scale.
The whole organization of the championship is carried out by the community of robotics from the Technical University of Zurich under the supervision of Professor Robert Reiner. I talked to Mr. Rainer and other organizers, and we even agreed to meet with my partner during his working visit to Europe on our project to create a prosthetic arm. However, due to certain circumstances, the meeting was rescheduled.
Now Kibatlon is a rapidly developing private initiative with little state support. However, the organizers, and we fully support them in this, want to bring the championship to the global level, and, subsequently, to create some kind of alternative to the Paralympic Games.

Request

Currently, the site can submit a preliminary application for participation. It can be of two types: for “pilots” (athletes) and for technical teams / companies that represent their designs. When submitting an application, the company can also indicate its “pilot”, if it already exists. If the team cannot find a “pilot” for the competition, the organizers will “provide it”. However, the chances of winning such teams will be significantly lower, because the athlete must train in advance to use the prosthesis, exoskeleton and other technical devices of a specific modification. We have already begun to work on this issue with our Paralympic Committee and, I think, we will manage to put together a good team. It is also worth noting that there is a clear regulation, which identifies the criteria for pilots for each discipline. For example, for prosthetic hands, they sound like this:

• Pilots with partial amputation of the forearm of one or two arms are allowed. If the amputation of the arm is higher than the elbow joint or complete, the pilot is allowed to participate, however, with a large number of relevant applications, an additional sub-discipline will be created for full-hand prostheses.
• Pilots must be at least 18 years old.

As you can see, practically everyone can take part. The task of the preliminary applications collection stage is to show how interesting the world community is to the idea of ​​such a championship. To date, more than 20 applications have been filed from companies and university teams. It is easy to apply, for this you just need to download a special form from the website, fill it in and send it to the organizers. Next, you will sign up for updates and inform about further actions. Any organization can take part (private, state, public), as well as just an engineering / scientific group. The main condition is that self-developed devices should be used, even if they are experimental.
In the preliminary application, you must specify your opinion about the complexity of the developed trails with obstacles and tasks for each discipline. If the majority of participants note the excessive complexity of the route, then it will be simplified, and vice versa.
For example, in the competition for prosthetic hands there will be 2 tasks:
1. Run the ring on a special “track”.


2. Demonstrate interaction with objects of various shapes and structures.


Rules for each task, as well as descriptions of other disciplines can be found on the official Cybathlon website.

Our goals

Cybathlon has prospects to become one of the largest technological events in the world. Standing at its source is extremely important for the Russian robotic community. And with our performance, we want to show that the future, in which robotics plays a significant role in human life, is already beginning to come, and that Russia has everything necessary to create truly advanced technologies.

In conclusion, I would like to share with you, the performance of my good friend and partner, Ilya Chek, to St. Petersburg Science Slam , which took place on July 20th. The presentation was devoted to bionics in general, our project “Express prosthetics” in particular, as well as to Cybathlon.



If you are engaged in the development of any technical means of rehabilitation, or simply take a great interest in robotics and wish to apply your knowledge in the field of medicine, or maybe you yourself are from the medical field, and you just do not have enough modern solutions, then write in a comment or in a personal, and We will be happy to combine our efforts with you to make something interesting together and create a strong team to participate in the first Cybathlon Championship.