A modular cable-driven humanoid arm with anti-parallelogram mechanisms and Bowden cables

This paper proposes a novel modular cable-driven humanoid arm with anti-parallelogram mechanisms(APMs)and Bowden cables.The lightweight arm realizes the advantage of joint independence and the rational layout of the driving units on the base.First,this paper analyzes the kinematic performance of the APM and uses the rolling motion between two ellipses to approximate a pure-circular-rolling motion.Then,a novel type of one-degree-of-freedom(1-DOF)elbow joint is proposed based on this principle,which is also applied to design the 3-DOF wrist and shoulder joints.Next,Bowden cables are used to connect the joints and their driving units to obtain a modular cable-driven arm with excellent joint independence.After that,both the forward and inverse kinematics of the entire arm are analyzed.Last,a humanoid arm prototype was developed,and the assembly velocity,joint motion performance,joint stiffness,load carrying,typical humanoid arm movements,and repeatability were tested to verify the arm performance.

基于自适应切换迭代学习的绳驱踝外骨骼力控制器设计

人-外骨骼构成强耦合系统,步态的偶然变异对控制器产生较大干扰,导致系统震荡。针对这一问题,提出了一种自适应切换的迭代学习控制策略。在峰值误差较大时,采用峰值迭代学习控制,仅对力控信号峰值点进行迭代更新;当峰值误差较小时,切换为传统的PD型迭代学习控制,对力控信号所有点进行迭代更新。为进一步改善控制效果,设计了前馈控制器来补偿鲍登绳传动的非线性摩擦。仿真和外骨骼实验结果表明,与传统PD型迭代学习算法相比,自适应切换的迭代学习控制策略保证了助力曲线的平稳升降,同时该策略具有更快的收敛速度以及受干扰后更快的恢复速度,实现了行走过程中辅助力的准确跟踪控制。

Development of a Hand Exoskeleton System for Index Finger Rehabilitation

In order to overcome the drawbacks of traditional rehabilitation method,the robot-aided rehabilitation has been widely investigated for the recent years.And the hand rehabilitation robot,as one of the hot research fields,remains many challenging issues to be investigated.This paper presents a new hand exoskeleton system with some novel characteristics.Firstly,both active and passive rehabilitative motions are realized.Secondly,the device is elaborately designed and brings advantages in many aspects.For example,joint motion is accomplished by a parallelogram mechanism and high level motion control is therefore made very simple without the need of complicated kinematics.The adjustable joint limit design ensures that the actual joint angles don＇t exceed the joint range of motion（ROM） and thus the patient safety is guaranteed.This design can fit to the different patients with different joint ROM as well as to the dynamically changing ROM for individual patient.The device can also accommodate to some extent variety of hand sizes.Thirdly,the proposed control strategy simultaneously realizes the position control and force control with the motor driver which only works in force control mode.Meanwhile,the system resistance compensation is preliminary realized and the resisting force is effectively reduced.Some experiments were conducted to verify the proposed system.Experimentally collected data show that the achieved ROM is close to that of a healthy hand and the range of phalange length（ROPL） covers the size of a typical hand,satisfying the size need of regular hand rehabilitation.In order to evaluate the performance when it works as a haptic device in active mode,the equivalent moment of inertia（MOI） of the device was calculated.The results prove that the device has low inertia which is critical in order to obtain good backdrivability.The experiments also show that in the active mode the virtual interactive force is successfully feedback to the finger and the resistance is reduced by one-third;for the passive control mode,the desired trajectory is realized satisfactorily.

绳驱动柔性上肢外骨骼机器人设计与控制

为了提高上肢外骨骼机器人的拟人化程度及关节柔性,设计了一种由串联弹性驱动器和鲍登线驱动的4自由度柔性上肢外骨骼机器人.首先,设计一种六连杆双平行四边形机构,建立肩关节虚拟转动中心,满足人体肩部3自由度运动需求.然后,设计基于串联弹性驱动器和鲍登线的驱动模块,将驱动器和机器人关节分离,降低结构的复杂度,减轻关节质量,实现力矩/位置信息的反馈.最后,构建机器人运动学及动力学模型,设计关节阻抗控制器并对样机肘关节进行阻抗控制实验.由实验结果可知,刚度系数在0.5 N·m/(°)~1.5 N·m/(°)时,力矩跟踪均方根为0.33 N·m;阻尼系数在0.001 N·m·s/(°)~0.01 N·m·s/(°)时,力矩跟踪均方根为0.57 N·m.实验结果表明,调节阻抗控制器中的阻抗系数能够改变关节的刚度和阻尼特性,从而提高人机连接的柔顺性.因此该机器人可以满足康复训练需求.