Embry‑Riddle's Biomechanics and Aerospace Laboratory

Embry‑Riddle's Biomechanics and Aerospace Lab (ERBaL) is used for integrating biomedical systems with aerospace engineering. Aerospace biomedical engineering provides a foundational understanding, predictive modeling builds on this knowledge, biomechanics and robotics to apply these insights, and education enhancement to ensure future expertise.

Together, these efforts position Embry-Riddle at the forefront of aerospace biomedical research and education. Students can also get involved by taking ME 344 or ME 544 with Dr. Walck or joining one of the many ongoing projects.

Projects

• Mitigate Microgravity Deconditioning Syndrome Using Resistive Exercise as a Countermeasure
• A Novel Resistance Exercise Machine for Use in a Lower Body Negative Pressure Box to Counteract the Effects of Weightlessness
• The Effects of Bone Decalcification Due to Micro-Gravity

Hardware

• Tono-Pen AVIA® Tonometer
• Technavance 60-degree tilt bed with lower-body negative pressure chamber (premium)
• Automated pressure control system, computers, and instrument control software
• Angio CPET Ergometric Unit
• Four-lead electrocardiogram and heart rate monitor
• VICON Motion Capture System:
  • Eight Vero v2.2 cameras
  • Two VICON Vu video cameras (2.1 MP, 60 FPS) mounted on tripods
  • 12 Vantage V5 cameras (eight wide lenses and four standard lenses) mounted along the ceiling perimeter
• Camera frame rates synced to the lesser of the two cameras (i.e., 330 Hz); 4 mm passive reflective markers
• AMTI OR6-6-OP-2K-CTY 2000 Series force plates (six plates integrated into the floor)
• Delsys Inc. Wireless System including Delsys Trigno Minis with trigger module (Delsys, Natick, MA), used to synchronize EMG data with motion data; sampling rate of 1,926 samples per second
• Dell computers with high-end graphics cards, 128 GB of memory, and top-of-the-line processors, each equipped with Vicon Nexus Motion Capture System software, OpenSim musculoskeletal modeling, and EMGworks

Software

• Vicon Nexus Motion Capture System
• OpenSim 4.0 musculoskeletal modeling
• EMGworks
• Notepad++