Haptic motion control for physical human support

Future robots and mechatronic systems will be required to physically support human activities. In order to reach the stage of real human-friendly physical support, they should acquire many functions such as the recognition of the real world based on complicated human actions, the transmission of the ambient information in harmony with human sensation, and so on. Since haptic sensation, as well as visual information and auditory sensation are so important for human activities, haptic motion control is one of the most important issues for the purpose. This paper now presents some haptic motion control techniques as the fundamental technology for the realization of future physical human support. Copyright © 2009 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.