Assignments

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Results of assignment selection by groups

Assignment nr. Assignment name Group nr.
1 Information and measuring system for monitoring biometric indicators of a crew member of a spacecraft 2 yellow
2 Device for measuring surface electromyography of the hand and stimulation muscle tension 6 red
3 Wearable or implantable automatic dispenser to provide drugs 5 blue
4 Exoskeleton for hurt elbow to allow the injured passenger to participate in the necessary routines 1 orange
5 A device to guide a passenger with disabled vision through the space ship 3 green
6 Heart rate supervision and alarm system 4 grey

What are the limiting factors for your design? (Requirements)

  • An electronic sensor + controller needs be used to enable monitoring the functionality of the device or on patient data.
  • Functionality is the primary goal, but also think about the astronaut to wear this device. It needs to be comfortable and also design should not be neglected. Do you want to be call a disgusting BORG or a cool looking superman?
  • The designed device should be lightweight, compact and easy to use. The device interface must have a low entry threshold to work with it.
  • The measurement of biological parameters or control of the device should be capable to b carried out remotely (for example, via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth).
  • Each device must have a unique identifier that must be transmitted to the server to identify the device.
  • It is necessary to design the body and auxiliary fastening elements. Best prepare (first) source files for printing parts on a 3D printer.
  • Consider that operating conditions vary in the range: from overloads during acceleration and deceleration to zero gravity.
  • It is necessary to provide user feedback on the device (for example, sound and / or light notification).
  • All disciplines need to work together to achieve a device that helps the astronaut and which is proudly worn by him.

What do you need to produce during the hackaton? (Outcomes)

The time during this summerschool is limited and you will learn a lot of new things. We therefore ask you to focus on following things as outcome of the hackaton:

1. A business canvas elaborated for your product. You will receive training and the opportunity to design this business canvas in the related mini lecture on Monday.

2. A system concept including all necessary components, materials, 3D printed parts.

  • A block diagram is the bare minimum, the sky is the limit for your creativity. A fancy drawing or even a comic might be additional ways to show the design of the device
  • A design file and a visualization of a 3D printed part for your design. You have time on Wednesday afternoon to design this part.
  • A electronic schematic of all modules you used including the control processor and all its peripherals. Use the datasheets to add necessary connections, define input and output ports,...
  • A description of the software to assess the functionality. It is up to you how to present it. Flow diagrams or UML diagrams are good choices, but chose from your experience.

3. A presentation for pitching, which you create on Thursday afternoon in the respective training.

Detailed assignments

Assignment 1: Information and measuring system for monitoring biometric indicators of a crew member of a spacecraft

Description

During the colonization of space, constant monitoring of the condition of the crew members and the environment is necessary. This is important for long-term flights on modern spacecraft to nearby and distant planets, when astronauts are in orbital stations. Space tourism is also beginning to develop. Financing and insurance of such flights is provided by private companies, for which this is a new type of business. This increases the importance of collecting information about the health of travelers. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure the reliability and control of access to data. The performance of astronauts, their health, the integrity of their equipment, and the attainability of mission objectives depend on the effectiveness of monitoring their health. As the experience of previous flights has shown, many non-standard situations are possible in space, including physiological and neuropsychiatric problems for the crew. Problems with equipment are possible: disconnection of power supplies and lighting, depressurization, change in the gas composition of the atmosphere inside the ship, failure of the control system, etc. There are sources of influence external to the ship: anomalous radiation, collision with various bodies, etc. It is important to identify in time a condition that threatens the well-being or life of a crew member. This will allow each participant in interplanetary flights to assess the current situation and predict its development, to take measures to overcome it.

Your tasks is the design of an measuring system for monitoring biometric indicators of a crew member of a spacecraft, transferring information to a server for analysis and visualization. Its implementation implies monitoring the human condition (temperature, heart rate, pulse, breathing gas analyzer) and the environment (temperature, humidity, air composition) in order to make recommendations about the possibility of being in this environment and informing about deviations from normal parameters. It is required to provide control of the device and display of information using a minimum set of indicators and control elements.

Main supervisor/mentor of this assignment

Oleksandr Tarasov (bioart.akovalenko@iiss.at)

Assignment 2: Device for measuring surface electromyography of the hand and stimulation muscle tension

Description

During the space journey, someone injured a hand and it is out of functioning. What the team need is to check the propagation of nerve impulses in the limb and find the muscles that do not contract. So, they need a myograph that can measure the electrical potentials from the surface of the skin using metal electrodes.

Then, in order to avoid muscle degradation, it should be stimulated from time to time, so you need to design a device to periodically maintain muscle tension. It can use the same electrodes, so the device has to provide two modes: measurement and stimulation.

Please, think about how to attach electrodes to the limb. What electrode shape may be optimal? What information must be displayed? Also, you should provide safety during the stimulation process.

Main supervisor/mentor of this assignment

Dmytro Shtofel (bioart.dshtofel@iiss.at)

Assignment 3: Wearable or implantable automatic dispenser to provide drugs

Description

Despite all medical checks before start, astronauts suffer from a COVID-like disease. They will not be able to descent to the moon to harvest raw earth materials if not cured properly before arrival. Doctors found out that a medicine on board can relieve symptoms and prevent infection of the other crewmembers but need to be given every 5 minutes in very small doses.

You need to design an automatic dispenser pumping the medicine in the cardio-vascular system depending on the body temperature of the astronaut.

Design an automatic syringe set, a bracelet and a tool for remote supervision. It is important that the device is wearable or implantable and will not influence the mobility of the astronaut. In particular, keep care that the design is compact and cannot be detached accidentally, which would require new disinfection preventing an in-time cure. Also design a user interface to notify the astronaut about (mal)function of the device both for on-board and extra-vehicular activity in a spacesuit, since the medicine needs to be also given the first days on moon.

Main supervisor/mentor of this assignment

Albert Treytl (abioart.atreytl@iiss.at), Gabor Kovacs (bioart.gkovacs@iiss.at)

Assignment 4: Exoskeleton for hurt elbow to allow the injured passenger to participate in the necessary routines

Description

A passenger got badly injured on the elbow and broke a bone in it. Since space travels take some time, a quick fix is necessary, as the nearest medical hospital can be days, weeks or even months away. As in space you mostly need your both hands to grasp things to navigate through the space-station or other spacecraft in a state of micro-gravity, it is important that the passenger gets an hardware aid to fix his broken elbow and still be able to move around with it.

An exoskeleton will help to stabilize the arm and provide enough extra strength to the patient to put force on it to navigate in a controlled manner. A minimum requirement for moving the device is the possibility to rotate in the plane between upper and lower arm. The arm should be locked in place on the skeleton to avoid movement and ensure the bone is in place to grow together.

Another requirement is to provide sensors (to trace and count movements, heartbeat.. ) of the patient via the exoskeleton so the medical team in the ground station can monitor the patient’s condition and can advise on extra measures and therapy. Since the bracelet is large you have and extra amount of filament for the 3D printing.

Main supervisor/mentor of this assignment

Loren De Vogelaer (bioart.ldevogelaer@iiss.at )

Assignment 5: A device to guide a passenger with disabled vision through the space ship

Description

During a maintenance job in the spacecraft an astronauts’ eyes got sprayed with a greasing fluid. The effect is that the astronaut is left temporarily without a clear vision. The astronaut can still detect color and light but has no detailed view of the surroundings.

As the team cannot afford to lose a valuable collaborator because of all the tasks, which need to be performed, they work on a device to help their colleague regain a way to navigate through the spacecraft.

So a wearable aid for the colleague that helps detect objects and generates visual feedback to control navigation in the known surroundings on the inner part of the spacecraft could be a solution. As color and light is still detected, a method with colored mapped dots could be a solution.

Accept the challenge and design a possible solution.

Main supervisor/mentor of this assignment

Aryeh Weiss (bioart.aweiss@iiss.at)

Assignment 6: Heart rate supervision and alarm system

Description

A passenger is suffering from irregular heart beat. Your task is to measure the heart beat/pulse and derive frequency and variability of the heart rate.

If the device discovers an irregularity in the heart rate an alarm should be raised both to the patient and the medical team.

Additionally, the patient need to be instructed to sit or lay down on a hard surface such as a rest bed or the floor. For safety reasons you need to check automatically if the patient followed theses instructions.

You can assume that on the space ship a micro gravity field is installed, but all solutions not requiring such a field are favourable.

Main supervisor/mentor of this assignment

David Luengo (bioart.dluengo@iiss.at) and Gabor Kovacs (bioart.gkovacs@iiss.at)