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Cats have protractible claws to fold their tips to keep them sharp. They protract claws while hunting and pawing on slippery surfaces. Protracted claws by tendons and muscles of toes can help cats anchoring themselves steady while their locomotion trends to slip and releasing the hold while they retract claws intentionally. This research proposes a kind of modularized self-adaptive toe mechanism inspired...
While numerous gaits in the horizontal regime (e.g. walking or running) have been defined for legged systems on level ground, no dynamically grounded definitions have been developed for dynamic vertical running. Gaits have clear implications to robotic control strategy, efficiency, and stability. However, while several climbing robotic systems have been described as achieving ‘running’, the question...
New work in robotics targets the development of controllable agile motions such as leaping. In this work, we examine animal and robotic systems on the metric of jumping agility and find that animals can outperform the most agile robots by a factor of two. These specially adapted animals use a jumping strategy we term power modulation to generate more peak power for jumping than otherwise possible...
In this paper, we develop a waterproof suit for humanoid robots and propose an underwater walking control method. Although very few life-sized humanoid robots are completely waterproof, we can easily make these humanoid robots watertight by putting a waterproof suit on them. In water, humanoid robots are influenced by the two forces due to the water: buoyancy and drag force. We take buoyancy into...
Optimal control approaches in combination with trajectory optimization have recently proven to be a promising control strategy for legged robots. Computationally efficient and robust algorithms were derived using simplified models of the contact interaction between robot and environment such as the linear inverted pendulum model (LIPM). However, as humanoid robots enter more complex environments,...
Animals and robots alike face challenges of flipping-over as they move in complex terrain. Small insects like cockroaches can rapidly right themselves when upside down, yet small fast-running legged robots are much less capable of ground-based self-righting. Inspired by the discoid cockroach that opens its wings to push against the ground to self-right, we designed actuated wings for robot self-righting...
Building robots from soft materials provides opportunities to create more robust and adaptive designs: soft bodies can conform to complex shapes in the environment and they are able to cushion shocks and store elastic energy. The challenge, however, remains to control highly deformable moveable structures effectively. We have proposed that one useful approach is through an autonomous decentralized...
Due to the complex and high nonlinear structure of the quadruped robots, the dynamic control of quadruped robots has long been a big challenge for the researchers. In this paper, a guaranteed performance adaptive control algorithm is proposed for tracking control of a quadruped robot with parameter uncertainties. The controller is designed based on the sliding mode theory, and incorporates a transformed...
This paper addresses the sensor-less estimation of external forces exerted on the legs of a quadruped from the environment, with the use of the data provided from the angular position and velocity sensors at the joints of the legs. For this purpose, two nonlinear disturbance observers have been used. The first disturbance observer, estimates the torques applied to the legs through the legs' couplings...
Extending leg length in a biped entity may improve some gait factors such as speed, worsening some others. This study is undertaken to better understand the kinetic and kinematic aspects of human gait following changes in the geometry of lower extremities. An artificial structure is built to be attached and fixed to one's leg. Using a two-sensor motion capture system practical walking data with the...
Since interest in exoskeletons and active orthoses has been growing in recent years, optimal design and weight reduction of such systems was one of the main concerns of researchers. This study's purpose is to develop a lower limb exoskeleton for assisting elderly people in stair climbing. To this end, using shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators was under focus. As the first step of the research, in this...
Several mass-spring-damper (MSD) models have been developed to study biodynamical characteristics of the body during running, especially the ground reaction force. The MSD models are mainly categorized into passive and active models. Plenty of the passive models have been proposed in which compliant properties of the elements modeling the soft tissues of the leg musculoskeletal system remain invariable...
Recently haptic devices are increasingly used in industry and research. As their applications become widespread, their design is needed to be more efficient. At design stage, determinant features of haptic devices such as rigidity, force bandwidth, accuracy etc. must be considered and improved. Structurally, parallel mechanisms (PMs) are appropriate candidates for haptic devices. Due to multi legged...
Research on the human-centric design of driving interface devices, such as a pedal and a steering wheel, has been conducted to improve the operational comfort as well as the driving safety in developing an intelligent driver assistance system. However, the evidence on human factors in driving has been still insufficient to attain such research goals. In this paper, an electric-driven pedal interface...
To develop a mechanism that will smoothly support the standup motion of elderly people, we reconsidered the operation-start timing of our previously developed device using a measurement apparatus. In the experiments with elderly subjects, the mechanism did not work as well as it did with younger subjects. For younger subjects, the floor's reaction force decreased when the support mechanism was used,...
The final goal of our research is to develop a rehabilitation support robot for self-standing-up training of hemiplegic stroke patients to restore normal standing-up motion. To improve the motor function of the patient's paralyzed leg, a guided standing-up training is effective. The therapist controls the patient's left/right load balance by pulling or pushing the patient's waist during standing-up...
With the arrival of aging society, the passive robot walking helper is introduced to provide safe mobility for the elders, which features continuous energy dissipation from the system and is thus intrinsically safe. As both static and moving obstacles may be present in daily activities, obstacle avoidance during guidance is very imperative for its practical use, which motivates us to propose such...
The system was developed for remote care-taking applications which could be incorporated for patients. This system has utilised as a sensor integrated shoe and a waist belt. The foot pressures of the foot sole vital points are being measured along with the additional contribution from inertial measurement units. The measured data is being transmitted to a remote Internet of Thing (IOT) for further...
Active wing has the potential to increase the stability of racing cars by down-force as a result of aerodynamics pressure energy. In this paper a novel way of wing modelling and control is introduced. The proposed model is driven by using the second and the third Newton law and is also theoretically calculated by some simple formulation. Moreover, a proof to show how the performance increases is given...
A long-range, continuous, and accessible kinetic measurement system is required for evaluating gait disorders. Although methods employing force plates are gold standard in kinetic gait analysis, their usage is often limited by their measurement range, and they are cost-prohibitive for general clinics. Instrumented insole-based gait analysis systems using accessible sensors were proposed in previous...
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