One of the concepts that I had to use constantly during my research, but never really manage to get my head around, was the concept of transformations represented as matrices. It was something I was not formally taught and ended up being forced to use and understand in a slow and painful way. And I finally managed to grasp it when I would least expect it: when I had to teach it to others!
Since I started working on the BETER REHAB project, I decided to use ROS as the central platform to implement all the logic for the controller of the robotic arm. This was due to two reasons: a) ROS is considered a MUST for anyone doing robotics and b) I really wanted to learn something new (those that know me can understand that this is a very big motivation for me).
About a year ago (to be more precise, a year and 3 months ago), I applied for a grant at the UEFISCDI research agency. The initial plan was to have the results by May 2017 and start working on the projects sometime during the summer. Long story short, we had quite some delays, receiving news about the ranking only a few weeks ago.
Last week, we got the final answer, and the news were good: The government had allocated the budget for the projects for this year and our proposal was among the funded ones!
About a year and a half ago, I started working at the Robotics group at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. The goal was (and still is) to develop a robotic rehabilitation framework, using biomechanics in the loop, to be used with post-stroke patients. Today, I finally started getting my hands dirty (still waiting for funding for the project) and things are moving.
Literally :)
One of the ideas for the project is to use the Cyton Gamma 1500 that is available at our lab, and I am starting to learn how to use it.