In response to the ever-increasing demand of community-based rehabilitation, a novel smart rehab walker iReGo is designed to facilitate the lower limb rehabilitation training based on motion intention recognition. The proposed walker provides a number of passive degrees of freedom (DoF) to the pelvis that are used to smooth the hip rotations in such a way that the natural gait is not significantly affected, meanwhile, three actuated DoF that are actively controlled to assist patients with mobility disabilities. The walker first identifies the user's motion intention from the interaction forces in both left and right sides of the pelvis and then uses the kinematic model to generate appropriate driving velocities to support the body weight and improve mobility. In this paper, workspace, dexterity and the force field of the walker are analyzed based on the system Jacobian. Simulation and experiments with healthy subjects are carried out to verify the effectiveness and tip-over stability. These results demonstrate that the walker has sufficient workspace for pelvic motions, satisfactory dexterity and near-linear force feedback within the prescribed workspace, and that the walker is easily controlled to ensure normal gait.

To date, most quadruped robots are either equipped with trunks that are rigid bodies or consist of blocks connected by passive joints. The kinematic performance of these quadruped robots is only determined by their legs. To release the mobility of trunks and enhance the performance of quadruped robots, this paper proposes a metamorphic quadruped robot with a moveable trunk (a planar six-bar closed-loop linkage), called MetaRobot I, which can implement active trunk motions. The robot can twist its trunk like natural quadrupeds. Through trunk twisting, the stability margin of the quadruped robot can be increased compared with that of a quadruped robot with a rigid trunk. The inner relationship between the stability margin and the twisting angle is analyzed in this paper. Finally, simulations are carried out to show the benefits facilitated by the twisting trunk to the quadruped robot.

Automating the double-hull block welding improves the shipbuilding efficiency and mitigates health risk to the welders. Due to the unique challenge posed by the internal structures, existing technologies are at most semi-autonomous. Believing that mobility is key to full autonomy, we employ mobile robot technology to transport the welding manipulator, treating the internal structures as obstacles. Though many robot designs for obstacle scaling exist, there is no selection guideline. To this end, we surveyed existing robots and came out with a taxonomy to explain the design philosophies behind them. From the survey, it is ascertained that there are two suitable philosophies: bridging and conforming. Bridging mechanisms create links between points on obstacles while conforming mechanisms have the robot’s body attuned to the surface contour of obstacles. Understanding the pros and cons, we conclude that having a hybrid mechanism with tracked arms and articulated body would be ideal for the structured environment. Subsequently, we studied the feasibility of the design in terms of configuration, geometry, kinematics, and stability. Lastly, the proposed design was tested by building a 1/3 scale prototype robot. It was made to perform the expected motions in a mock double-hull block setup. The experiment proved that the design achieves the mobility objectives of the robot. With this mobility design, we solved the most challenging issue in enabling fully autonomous welding in double-hull blocks. The taxonomy is instrumental in our design selection and could be helpful for other robot designers too.

This paper presents a nonlinear vision-based observer to estimate 3D translational position and velocity of a quadrotor aerial robot for closed-loop, position-based, visual-servo control in global positioning system (GPS)-denied environments. The method allows for motion control in areas where GPS signals are weak or absent, for example, inside of a building. Herein, the robot uses a low-cost on-board camera to observe at least two feature points fixed in the world frame to self-localize for feedback control, without constraints on the altitude of the robot. The nonlinear observer described takes advantage of the geometry of the perspective projection and is designed to update the translational position and velocity in real-time by exploiting visual information and information from an inertial measurement unit. One key advantage of the algorithm is it does not require constraints or assumptions on the altitude and initial estimation errors. Two new controllers based on the backstepping technique that take advantage of the estimator's output are described and implemented for trajectory tracking. The Lyapunov method is used to show asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system. Simulation and experimental results from an indoor environment where GPS localization is not available are presented to demonstrate feasibility and validate the performance of the observer and control system for hovering and tracking a circular trajectory defined in the world frame.

In this paper, we present the redesign and analysis of a century old walking toy. Historically, the toy is made up of two wooden pieces including a rear leg and a front leg and body (as a single piece) that are attached to each other by means of a pin joint. When the toy is placed on a ramp and given a slight perturbation, it ambles downhill powered only by gravity. Before the toy can walk successfully, it needs careful tuning of its geometry and mass distribution. The traditional technique of manual wood carving offers very limited flexibility to tune the mass distribution and geometry. We have re-engineered the toy to be three-dimensional (3D) printed as a single integrated assembly that includes a pin joint and the two legs. After 3D printing, we have to manually break-off the weakly held support material to allow movement of the pin joint. It took us 6 iterations to progressively tune the leg geometry, mass distribution, and hinge joint tolerances to create our most successful working prototype. The final 3D printed toy needs minimal postprocessing and walks reliably on a 7.87 deg downhill ramp. Next, we created a computer model of the toy to explain its motion and stability. Parameter studies reveal that the toy exhibits stable walking motion for a fairly wide range of mass distributions. Although 3D printing has been used to create nonassembly articulated kinematic mechanisms, this is the first study that shows that it is possible to create dynamics-based nonassembly mechanisms such as walking toys.

In this paper, an approach to physical collaboration between a patient and a therapist is proposed using a bilateral impedance control strategy developed for delayed tele-robotic systems. The patient performs a tele-rehabilitation task in a resistive virtual environment with the help of online assistive forces from the therapist being provided through teleoperation. Using this strategy, the patient's involuntary hand tremors can be filtered out and the effort of severely impaired patients can be amplified in order to facilitate their early engagement in physical tasks. The response of the first desired impedance model is tracked by the master robot (interacting with the patient), and the master trajectory plus a deviation as the response of the second impedance model is tracked by the slave robot (interacting with the therapist). Note that the first impedance model is a virtual mass-damper-spring system that has a response trajectory to the combination of patient and therapist forces. Similarly, the second impedance model is a virtual mass-damper-spring system that generates the desired slave–master deviation trajectory as its response to the therapist force. Transmitted signals through the communication channels are subjected to time delays, which exist in home-based rehabilitation (i.e., tele-rehabilitation). Tracking of the impedance models responses in the presence of modeling uncertainties is achieved by employing a nonlinear bilateral adaptive controller and proven using a Lyapunov analysis. The stability of delayed teleoperation system is also proven using the absolute stability criterion. The proposed control method is experimentally evaluated for patient–therapist collaboration in resistive/assistive tasks. In these experiments, a healthy human operator simulates a poststroke patient behavior during the interaction with the master robot.

An estimated 230,000 above-knee amputees in India are currently in need of prosthetic devices, a majority of them facing severe socio-economic constraints. However, only a few passive prosthetic knee devices in the market have been designed for facilitation of normative gait kinematics and for meeting the specific daily life needs of above-knee amputees in the developing world. Based on the results of our past studies, this paper establishes a framework for designing a potentially low-cost, fully passive prosthetic knee device, which aims to facilitate able-bodied kinematics at a low metabolic cost. Based on a comprehensive set of functional requirements and biomechanical analysis from our past work, we present an early prototype mechanism for the prosthetic knee joint that is primarily focused on enabling able-bodied kinematics. The mechanism is implemented using two functional modules: an automatic early stance lock for stability and a differential friction damping system for late stance and swing control. For preliminary, qualitative validation of the knee mechanism, we carried out a field trial on four above-knee amputees in India, which showed satisfactory performance of the early stance lock. The prototype enabled smooth stance-to-swing transition by timely initiation of late stance flexion. Possible methods of incorporating an additional spring module for further refinement of the design are also discussed, which can enable flexion-extension during the early-stance phase of the gait cycle and potentially reduce the metabolic energy expenditure of the user further.

This paper presents unified control schemes for compliant humanoid robots that are aimed at ensuring successful execution of both balancing tasks and walking trajectories for this class of bipeds, given the complexity of under-actuation. A set of controllers corresponding to the single-support (SS) and double-support (DS) walking phases has been designed based on the flexible sagittal joint dynamics of the system, accounting for both the motor and link states. The first controller uses partial state feedback (proportional–derivative–derivative (PDD)), whereas the second considers the full state of the robot (proportional–proportional–derivative–derivative (PPDD)), while both are mathematically proven to stabilize the closed-loop systems for regulation and trajectory tracking tasks. It is demonstrated mathematically that the PDD controller possesses better stability properties than the PPDD scheme for regulation tasks, even though the latter has the advantage of allowing for its associated gain-set to be generated by means of standard techniques, such as linear quadratic regulator (LQR) control. A switching condition relating the center-of-pressure (CoP) to the energy functions corresponding to the DS and SS models has also been established. The theoretical results are corroborated by means of balancing and walking experiments using the COmpliant huMANoid (COMAN), while a practical comparison between the designed controller and a classical PD controller for compliant robots has also been performed. Overall, and a key conclusion of this paper, the PPDD scheme has produced a significantly improved trajectory tracking performance, with 9%, 15%, and 20% lower joint space error for the hip, knee, and ankle, respectively.

A theoretical–algorithmic framework for the construction of balance stability boundaries of biped robots with multiple contacts with the environment is proposed and implemented on a robotic platform. Comprehensive and univocal definitions of the states of balance of a generic legged system are introduced with respect to the system's contact configuration. Theoretical models of joint-space and center of mass (COM)-space dynamics under multiple contacts, distribution of contact wrenches, and robotic system parameters are established for their integration into a nonlinear programing (NLP) problem. In the proposed approach, the balance stability capabilities of a biped robot are quantified by a partition of the state space of COM position and velocity. The boundary of such a partition provides a threshold between balanced and falling states of the biped robot with respect to a specified contact configuration. For a COM state to be outside of the stability boundary represents the sufficient condition for falling, from which a change in the system's contact is inevitable. Through the calculated stability boundaries, the effects of different contact configurations (single support (SS) and double support (DS) with different step lengths) on the robot's balance stability capabilities can be quantitatively evaluated. In addition, the balance characteristics of the experimental walking trajectories of the robot at various speeds are analyzed in relation to their respective stability boundaries. The proposed framework provides a contact-dependent balance stability criterion for a given system, which can be used to improve the design and control of walking robots.

This paper presents a framework based on multiport network theory for modeling underactuated grippers where the actuators produce finger motion by deforming an elastic transmission mechanism. If the transmission is synthesized from compliant components joined together with series (equal force) or parallel (equal displacement) connections, the resulting multiport immittance (stiffness) matrix for the entire transmission can be used to deduce how the object will behave in the grasp. To illustrate this, a three-fingered gripper is presented in which each finger is driven by one of two linear two-port spring networks. The multiport approach predicts contact force distribution with good fidelity even with asymmetric objects. The parallel-connected configuration exhibited object rotation and was more prone to object ejection than the series-connected case, which balanced the contact forces evenly.

In this paper, we demonstrate the application of a discrete control Lyapunov function (DCLF) for exponential orbital stabilization of the simplest walking model supplemented with an actuator between the legs. The Lyapunov function is defined as the square of the difference between the actual and nominal velocity of the unactuated stance leg at the midstance position (stance leg is normal to the ramp). The foot placement is controlled to ensure an exponential decay in the Lyapunov function. In essence, DCLF does foot placement control to regulate the midstance walking velocity between successive steps. The DCLF is able to enlarge the basin of attraction by an order of magnitude and to increase the average number of steps to failure by 2 orders of magnitude over passive dynamic walking. We compare DCLF with a one-step dead-beat controller (full correction of disturbance in a single step) and find that both controllers have similar robustness. The one-step dead-beat controller provides the fastest convergence to the limit cycle while using least amount of energy per unit step. However, the one-step dead-beat controller is more sensitive to modeling errors. We also compare the DCLF with an eigenvalue-based controller for the same rate of convergence. Both controllers yield identical robustness but the DCLF is more energy-efficient and requires lower maximum torque. Our results suggest that the DCLF controller with moderate rate of convergence provides good compromise between robustness, energy-efficiency, and sensitivity to modeling errors.

We have experimented with and simulated Steinkamp's passive-dynamic hopper. This hopper cannot stand up (it is statically unstable), yet it can hop the length of a 5 m 0.079 rad sloped ramp, with n ≈ 100 hops. Because, for an unstable periodic motion, a perturbation Δ x 0 grows exponentially with the number of steps ( Δ x n ≈ Δ x 0 × λ n ), where λ is the system eigenvalue with largest magnitude, one expects that if λ > 1 that the amplification after 100 steps, λ 100 , would be large enough to cause robot failure. So, the experiments seem to indicate that the largest eigenvalue magnitude of the linearized return map is less than one, and the hopper is dynamically stable. However, two independent simulations show more subtlety. Both simulations correctly predict the period of the basic motion, the kinematic details, and the existence of the experimentally observed period ∼ 11 solutions. However, both simulations also predict that the hopper is slightly unstable ( | λ | max > 1 ). This theoretically predicted instability superficially contradicts the experimental observation of 100 hops. Nor do the simulations suggest a stable attractor near the periodic motion. Instead, the conflict between the linearized stability analysis and the experiments seems to be resolved by the details of the launch: a simulation of the hand-holding during launch suggests that experienced launchers use the stability of the loosely held hopper to find a motion that is almost on the barely unstable limit cycle of the free device.

Minimalist, underactuated hand designs can be modified to produce useful, dexterous, in-hand capabilities without sacrificing their passive adaptability in power grasping. Incorporating insight from studies in parallel mechanisms, we implement and investigate the “spherical hand” morphologies: novel, hand topologies with two fingers configured such that the instantaneous screw axes, describing the displacement of the grasped object, always intersect at the same point relative to the palm. This produces the same instantaneous motion about a common point for any object geometry in a stable grasp. Various rotary fingertip designs are also implemented to help maintain stable contact conditions and minimize slip, in order to prove the feasibility of this design in physical hand implementations. The achievable precision manipulation workspaces of the proposed morphologies are evaluated and compared to prior human manipulation data as well as manipulation results with traditional three-finger hand topologies. Experiments suggest that the spherical hands' design modifications can make the system's passive reconfiguration more easily predictable, providing insight into the expected object workspace while minimizing the dependence on accurate object and contact modeling. We believe that this design can significantly reduce the complexity of planning and executing dexterous manipulation movements in unstructured environments with underactuated hands.

A method for optimizing a mobile platform to form a wheeled manipulator is presented. For a given manipulator, this mobile platform is optimized to have maximum tip-over stability against the reaction forces and moments caused by the movement of the manipulator. This optimization is formulated as a max–min problem, i.e., to maximize a stable region ratio (SRR) over the manipulator's workspace while minimizing a tip-over moment (TOM). For a practical solution, this max–min problem is converted to two subproblems. The first one is the worst-case analysis to determine the maximum positive value of TOM through searching over the manipulator's workspace. A positive value of TOM indicates tip-over instability. The three parameters used for this search are pertaining to the mobile platform itself, i.e., the number of support wheels, the size, and mass of the mobile platform. The second subproblem is to optimize the placement of the manipulator and accessory on the mobile platform against the identified worst case so that the entire manipulator's workspace is stable. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by applying it to optimize a mobile drilling and riveting robot.

This paper presents the design of an underactuated robotic arm for capturing moving targets with an impact-absorbing capability. The arm consists of three joints (a base joint (BJ), a medial joint (MJ), and a distal joint (DJ)) that are driven by two actuators. A one-input dual-output planetary gear (PG) system, in which neither the ring gear nor the planetary carrier is fixed, is employed to distribute the driving torque between the MJ and DJ. As is well known, an underactuated arm may exhibit unstable grasping performance such that the arm loses contact with the target in certain grasping postures. Therefore, a method is presented for analyzing the equilibrium contact force and the relative movement trend between the target and the arm to determine the work space in which stable grasping is possible. The structural configuration parameters, such as the length ratios among the three beams and the reduction ratio of the PG system, were optimized to maximize the grasp stability work space. Subsequently, a prototype was designed and fabricated based on these optimized parameters. Experiments indicate that this arm design can effectively reduce the peak torque on the joints when grasping a moving target.

This paper introduces a distributed variable impedance actuator that provides independent control of the actuator's angular position and its impedance. The idea for the actuator was inspired by the morphological structure of muscles and tendons. The system to be presented can be used as both a variable impedance actuator as well as a passive piecewise linear spring. Moreover, the actuator has an adequate number of degrees-of-freedom to approximate any nonlinear spring characteristics because of its distributed nature. Using distributed torque production subsystems with small and low power motors makes it possible to use this actuator in many applications such as prosthesis, artificial limbs, and wearable robots. The stability of the system discussed and the conditions that ensure the system stability are presented. Finally, a proof-of-concept actuator design is presented, as well as experimental results which confirm that the proposed distributed variable impedance actuator can be implemented in practical applications.

This paper shows that the equilibria of a wide class of multibody systems with quasi-rigid, frictional, or frictionless supports correspond to local minima of their potential energy; hence they are stable against small perturbations of external forces. This is a generalization of a theorem by Howard and Kumar on the stability of a single rigid body held by a gripper. It is also demonstrated that ambiguous equilibria (those, which coexist with the possibility of accelerating motion) may be stable. These results help finding safe grasps on nonrigid objects and assessing the stability of quasi-static robots moving over complex terrains.

We put forward a novel proposition that a mechanism can move in a constant direction and change its moving directions only by one actuator and construct a single-DOF (degree of freedom) ground mobile mechanism based on the well-known Schatz mechanism. This ground mobile Schatz mechanism has six links, one of which is designed as a spoke octahedron and an other one as a tail link. When the actuator rotates in one direction, the spoke octahedron can roll on the ground to let the ground mobile Schatz mechanism to move in a straight line pushed by the tail link. When the actuator rotates in the opposite direction, the tail link can be lifted to change its landing point and the relative position between it and the spoke octahedron, then the spoke octahedron can roll in another direction pushed by the tail link. In addition, it is also an untraditional application of the Schatz mechanism that it is used as a novel ground mobile mechanism. Locomotion analysis, gait planning and stability analysis are performed, respectively, and a prototype is developed and tested.

Considering the nonlinear mechanical-magnetic coupling effects, an accurate mathematical model was established for analyzing large stroke penta-stable mechanism possessing multistability transforming capability, with which the mechanism can be switched from pentastability to quadristability. The multistability with any number of stable states can be achieved by integrating spatially arranged magnets and large deformation beams as the fundamental energy storage elements to maintain stable states. By theoretically analyzing the influence of the large mechanical deformation on the magnetic field distribution and system energy, the nonlinear force–displacement characteristics of the multistable mechanism were obtained numerically, which were in good agreement with those obtained by experiments and finite element simulation. Then, an energy-based design criterion for magnetic-mechanical multistable mechanisms was proposed according to the stability theory and energy variation principle. In addition, the multistable transformability was theoretically analyzed, which can transform the proposed mechanism from penta-stability to quadristability by only changing the magnetization direction of moving magnets without varying the structure parameters.

People often complete tasks using one hand for the task and one hand for support. These one-handed support tasks can be found in many different types of jobs, such as automotive assembly jobs. Optimization-based posture prediction has proven to be a valid tool in predicting the postures necessary to complete the tasks, but the related external support forces have been prescribed and not predicted. This paper presents a method in which the optimal posture and related supporting hand forces can be predicted simultaneously using optimization and stability analysis techniques. Postures are evaluated using a physics-based human performance measure (HPM) while external forces are assessed using stability analysis. The physics-based performance measures are based on joint torque. Stability is analyzed using criteria based on a 3D zero moment point (ZMP). The human model used in the prediction contains 56 degrees of freedom and is based on a 50th percentile female in stature. Tasks based on common automotive assembly one-handed tasks found in literature are considered as examples to test the proposed method. Overall, the predicted supporting hand forces have good correlation with experimentally measured forces.