士兵可穿戴下肢外骨骼机器人多元感知方法研究

下肢外骨骼机器人是一种可穿戴且融合了多种机器人技术的复杂人-机系统。它将人类的智慧与机器人强壮的能力有效地结合起来,最大限度地提高人体的机动力和耐力,这为提升单兵作战系统的能力创造了条件。鉴于下肢外骨骼机器人在作战、后勤保障时可能遇到的复杂地形、多变随机的任务等,仅通过基于既定的典型步态规划程序驱动执行已知的特定动作,难以保证人机间的耦合性和动作的高随意性切换。为此,模拟并提炼出士兵常见的六种下肢动作作为后续研究,然后分析了下肢外骨骼机器人的感知控制原理,并提出了基于脑电预判感知、肌电精确感知和光纤实时校正的多信息融合的感知方法,强调将人的智能参与到机器人控制中,以期推进士兵可穿戴下肢外骨骼机器人的实用化。     

Design of an electrically actuated lower extremity exoskeleton

Human exoskeletons add the strength and endurance of robotics to a human's innate intellect and adaptability to help people transport heavy loads over rough, unpredictable terrain. The Berkeley lower extremity exoskeleton (BLEEX) is the first human exoskeleton that was successfully demonstrated to walk energetically autonomous while supporting its own weight plus an external payload. This paper details the design of the electric motor actuation for BLEEX and compares it to the previously designed hydraulic actuation scheme. Clinical gait analysis data was used to approximate the torques, angles and powers required at the exoskeleton's leg joints. Appropriately sized motors and gearing are selected, and put through a thorough power analysis. The compact electric joint design is described and the final electric joint performance is compared with BLEEX's previous hydraulic actuation. Overall, the electric actuation scheme is about twice as efficient and twice as heavy as the hydraulic actuation.     

An admittance shaping controller for exoskeleton assistance of the lower extremities

We present a method for lower-limb exoskeleton control that defines assistance as a desired dynamic response for the human leg. Wearing the exoskeleton can be seen as replacing the leg’s natural admittance with the equivalent admittance of the coupled system. The control goal is to make the leg obey an admittance model defined by target values of natural frequency, peak magnitude and zero-frequency response. No estimation of muscle torques or motion intent is necessary. Instead, the controller scales up the coupled system’s sensitivity transfer function by means of a compensator employing positive feedback. This approach increases the leg’s mobility and makes the exoskeleton an active device capable of performing net positive work on the limb. Although positive feedback is usually considered destabilizing, here performance and robust stability are successfully achieved through a constrained optimization that maximizes the system’s gain margins while ensuring the desired location of its dominant poles.     

The design of exoskeleton lower limbs rehabilitation robot

To achieve human lower limbs rehabilitation training,the exoskeleton lower limbs rehabilitation robot is designed. Through respective motor driving, the retarding mechanism and telescopic adjusting mechanism, the function of human walking is accomplished. After the design of the mechanical structure, the finite element analysis is carried out on the important parts and the control system is achieved by Single Chip Microcomputer.     

Kydonas-an autonomous hybrid robot: walking and climbing

Kydonas is an autonomous walking robot, making use of three wheels and three legs for moving in a free navigation space. More specifically, it employs autonomous wheels to move around in an environment where the surface is smooth with no unevenness. However, in the case that there are small height obstacles, stairs, or small height unevenness in the navigation environment, the robot makes use of both wheels and legs to efficiently travel through. Simulated results of Kydonas' traveling for several cases are provided     

Development of an underactuated exoskeleton for effective walking and load-carrying assist

This study proposed and developed an underactuated exoskeleton to support external load-carrying and partial assist for leg motion with level walking and ascending of slopes and stairs, which require positive energy generation. A strategy for active and passive joint combination are implemented on the underactuated exoskeleton, along with a quasi-passive mechanism to assist with vertical weight support and gait propulsion while minimizing hindrance to the wearer’s free motion. Further, muscle circumference sensors are directly matched with the active joint system, and insole sensors are applied to efficiently detect the wearer’s motion intension. Through experiments with the developed exoskeleton system, the considered performances were verified by analyzing the electromyography data from the rectus fremoris and gastrocnemius muscles while walking and ascending stairs. The developed underactuated exoskeleton can assist healthy people’s load-carrying and facilitate efficient ascension by utilizing the structural body weight support, leg swing, and lifting motion assist through motorized knee joints only. This kind of active joint minimization approach could be particularly helpful in field applications that require independent power sources such as batteries.     

Control and system identification for the Berkeley lower extremity exoskeleton (BLEEX)

The Berkeley lower extremity exoskeleton (BLEEX) is an autonomous robotic device whose function is to increase the strength and endurance of a human pilot. In order to achieve an exoskeleton controller which reacts compliantly to external forces, an accurate model of the dynamics of the system is required. In this report, a series of system identification experiments was designed and carried out for BLEEX. As well as determining the mass and inertia properties of the segments of the legs, various non-ideal elements, such as friction, stiffness and damping forces, are identified. The resulting dynamic model is found to be significantly more accurate than the original model predicted from the designs of the robot.     

Simulation of an autonomous biped walking robot includingenvironmental force interaction

This autonomous biped walking control system is based on reactive force interaction at the foothold. The precise 3D dynamic simulation presented includes: 1) a posture controller which accommodates the physical constraints of the reactive force/torque on the foot with quadratic programming; 2) a real-time COM (center of mass) tracking controller for foot placement, with a discrete inverted pendulum model; and 3) a 3D dynamic simulation scheme with precise contact with the environment. The proposed approach realizes robust biped locomotion because environmental interaction is directly controlled. The proposed method is applied to a 20 axes simulation model, and stable biped locomotion with velocity of 0.25 m/sec and a stepping time of 0.5 sec/step is realized     

基于非线性干扰观测器的下肢外骨骼上楼梯滑模控制

针对下肢外骨骼在轨迹跟踪时对内部参数扰动和外界干扰较为敏感的特性,设计一种基于非线性干扰观测器的下肢外骨骼机器人滑模控制策略。首先建立下肢外骨骼上楼梯的动力学模型,分析其动力学特性;其次设计非线性干扰观测器,对下肢系统的不确定性和外部干扰进行观测;在此基础上,为保证系统轨迹跟踪误差的收敛性和减弱抖振,设计了低通滤波的滑模控制器,根据李雅普诺夫稳定性理论证明了下肢系统的稳定性;最后通过仿真与实验验证,该控制策略能够有效克服多种因素引起的干扰,改善系统的控制性能,提高系统的稳定性。     

下肢外骨骼机器人变步长步态规划方法

为了解决下肢外骨骼机器人连续步态规划问题,基于倒立摆模型提出了一种步态规划算法,并针对传统倒立摆模型无法变步长连续行走的问题提出了新的改进方法。将外骨骼机器人分成支撑腿和摆动腿两部分,分别采用D-H法进行运动学分析;利用倒立摆模型和固定函数法,进行等效质心与摆动腿末端轨迹规划;在相邻单脚支撑期之间插入双脚支撑期,使下肢外骨骼机器人在不断改变步行时,利用双脚支撑期进行位置和速度的切换,实现实时步态规划;将规划算法在SIMULINK中实现,并与ADAMS模型进行联合仿真,下肢外骨骼机器人在仿真环境下行走稳定,证明了算法的有效性。     

Structure design and analysis of aid walking mechanism for a lower limb rehabilitation robot

In order to improve the rehabilitative effect of users' recovery training and reduce the production cost of rehabilitation institution, this paper designs an aid walking mechanism for a lower limb rehabilitation robot which achieves the movement of transmission by use of the interrelationship between hip and knee. Using single chip micyoco(SCM) control technology to achieve the coordinated operation of the entire mechanical institution, this aid walking mechanism simulates the walking gait. Besides, this paper also verifies that materials' strength meet the design requirements by Solidworks simulation stress-strain analysis module.     

Development of an indoor navigation system for a monocular-vision-based autonomous mobile robot

We have developed a technology for a robot that uses an indoor navigation system based on visual methods to provide the required autonomy. For robots to run autonomously, it is extremely important that they are able to recognize the surrounding environment and their current location. Because it was not necessary to use plural external world sensors, we built a navigation system in our test environment that reduced the burden of information processing mainly by using sight information from a monocular camera. In addition, we used only natural landmarks such as walls, because we assumed that the environment was a human one. In this article we discuss and explain two modules: a self-position recognition system and an obstacle recognition system. In both systems, the recognition is based on image processing of the sight information provided by the robot’s camera. In addition, in order to provide autonomy for the robot, we use an encoder and information from a two-dimensional space map given beforehand. Here, we explain the navigation system that integrates these two modules. We applied this system to a robot in an indoor environment and evaluated its performance, and in a discussion of our experimental results we consider the resulting problems.     

Research on human gait prediction and recognition algorithm of lower limb-assisted exoskeleton robot

Intelligent Service Robotics - Wearable lower limb-assisted exoskeleton robot can improve a human's ability to walk long distances under heavy load. Accurate perception and recognition of human...     

Development of a flexible autonomous robot without sensors or controllers

Recently, various robots with many degrees of freedom, such as rescue robots and domestic robots, have been developed and used in practical applications. It is difficult to control such robots autonomously in real environments, because in order to control the many degrees of freedom, we have to observe many states, calculate huge amounts of information, and operate many actuators. In this study, we consider a flexible robot without sensors or controllers that can determine the inclination of a slope and climb up the slope. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, we have developed a prototype robot and conducted experiments. The result indicates that the robot could determine the inclination and climb up a gentle slope autonomously. Thus, we have realized an autonomous robot that has no explicit sensors or controllers.     

Development and motion control of a biped walking robot based on passive walking theory

This research aims to develop the biped walking robot that can walk on the horizontal ground and improve walking efficiency by utilizing the theory of the passive walking robot, namely the pendulum principle. For that, two motors were installed on the hip of the robot to generate the control torques to perform a walking motion. The computer simulations with dynamic model were carried out to investigate the walking capability of the system. Experimental robot was developed considering the calculated results. The proportional control law was used in walking experiment. The robot can walk on the horizontal ground with the proposed method.     

A novel soft computing architecture for the control of autonomous walking robots

An integration of concepts from neurobiology, applied psychology, insect physiology and behaviour based robotics has led us to propose a novel generic systems architecture for the intelligent control of mobile robots and in particular, autonomous walking machines. (We define what we mean by “autonomy”.) The control architecture is hierarchical and will be described from a top-down perspective. Level one consists of interpreting a motivation and translating this into high-level commands. Once a high-level command is generated, a range of internal representations or “cognitive maps” may be employed at level two to help provide body-centred motion. At level three of the hierarchy kinematic planning is performed. The fourth level – dynamic compensation – requires feedback from the actuators and compensates for errors in the target vectors provided by the kinematic level and caused by systematic dynamic uncertainties or environmental disturbances. This is implemented using adaptive neural controllers. The interfaces will be described and results from simulation and implementation of levels 2–4 on a hexapod robot will be presented. The hierarchy employs the following soft computing techniques: evolution strategies, cognitive maps, adaptive heuristic critics, temporal difference learning and adaptive neural control using linear-equivalent neural networks.     

Adaptive gait control for a walking robot

Walking vehicles have the potential to emulate the superior off-road mobility of biological systems. However, it is important to make the walking machine terrain adaptive and versatile, and to minimize man's role as an operator in order to realize this potential. Terrain adaptive locomotion involves intelligent foothold selection and the control of gait to produce the desired motion. This requires a departure from the idealized, structured stepping patterns for statically stable gaits which have been the object of considerable research. A modified wave gait is used to demonstrate that it is possible for the vehicle velocity to be varied continuously in accordance with higher level commands even with irregular, asymmetric, and changing support patterns, A varying duty factor is employed to enable optimal leg cycling frequencies. Implementation of gait control algorithms and results from a computer simulation are also presented.     

Development of tethered autonomous mobile robot systems for field works

This paper describes the implementation details, advantages and potential applications of autonomous tethered mobile robot systems using the 'hyper-tether' concept. Hyper-tether is a new research area on tethered connections, which provide tethering among different mobile robot types, such as a robot with the environment and a robot with humans and animals. Its basic function is to actively control the tether's tension and/or length, but it also considers tether launching, anchoring, power delivery, data communication cabling and built-in trajectory command generation capabilities. Many of these features can be efficiently applied to build a tethered mobile robot system which remotely manipulates a working tool that can be useful for land-mine detection and removal, trimming of gardens and grass cutting of wide areas (e.g. golf courses, soccer and baseball fields), spraying of agricultural chemicals, forestry and construction works, etc. In this paper, a simple prototype of hypertether's winch-tether pair and a working tool equipped with a grass cutter was constructed, and basic experiments were performed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed system.     

Wave CPG model for autonomous decentralized multi-legged robot: Gait generation and walking speed control

In this paper, we propose a method to control gait generation and walking speed control for an autonomous decentralized multi-legged robot by using a wave Central Pattern Generator (CPG) model. The wave CPG model is a mathematical model of nonlinear oscillators and generates rhythmic movements of the legs. The gait generation and the walking speed control are achieved by controlling the virtual energy of the oscillators (Hamiltonian). A real robot experiment showed the relationship to the Hamiltonian, the actual energy consumption and the walking speed, and the effectiveness of the proposed method was verified.