The research efforts addressing the control of robot behavior have been polarized; most robots are either fully guided through “strong” programming, or given a few learning algorithms and left alone to explore the world. This paper explores the area in-between, looking at robot fostering, referring to techniques by which skills can be transferred to robots through a close interaction with humans. While robot fostering can be the basis of interaction with a variety of robotic shapes, it is most natural and human-friendly when the robot apprentices are anthropomorphic/humanoid. Fostering techniques discussed here include teaching/learning by imitation, teaching by description/explanation, reinforcement, aid and collaboration. The paper illustrates an experiment in teaching/learning by imitation. The human fosters the robot by first imitating its uncoordinated arm movements, thus helping the robot develop its sensory-motor associative system. The human then shows arm movements and the robot visually tracks them; consecutively, the robot is able to learn arm movements by imitation. Fostering techniques,in addition to robot learning/acquisition techniques and more efficient man–machine interaction are considered key elements contributing to the nascence of a new research field, develop-mental robotics, which would focus on the robotics counterpart of human cognitive and motor development.

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The purpose of this work is to give a first asses-sment about the efiectiveness of a new automated treadmill training for paraplegic patients using a driven gait orthosis (DGO). Manually assisted walking on a treadmill combined with body weight support has been used for more than 10 years in the locomotor rehabilitation of paraplegic patients. It could be shown that in incomplete spinal cord injured patients (SCI) this training improves walking capabilities.1,2 Up to now the assistance of the leg movements usually required at an early stage of training was done by physio-therapists. This manual assistance of the patient’s legs can be exhaustive because it has to be carried out in an ergonomically unfavorable position. Therefore the DGO has been developed to allow an automated moving of the legs of non-ambulatory patients during locomotor training on the treadmill. The goal of this endeavor was to facilitate the work of the therapists, to prolong the duration of the training sessions and to achieve a reproducible gait pattern for the leg movements. The aim of this study was to show how far the manually assisted locomotor training can be replaced by the automated one. This was done by com-paring the leg muscles EMG activity of two patients while they were trained either with the manual or the automated training method.

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This paper presents a short review of the history surrounding the development of haptic feedback systems, from early manipulators and telerobots, used in the nuclear and subsea industries, to today’s impressive desktop devices, used to support real-time interaction with 3D visual simulations, or Virtual Reality. Four examples of recent VR projects are described, illustrating the use of haptic feedback in ceramics, aerospace, surgical and defence applications. These examples serve to illustrate the premise that haptic feedback systems have evolved much faster than their visual display counterparts and are, today, delivering impressive peripheral devices that are truly usable by non-specialist users of computing technology.

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Human-robot interaction poses great challenges to
disabled people who must be able to control the robot via a limited physical ability. A novel semi-autonomous humanrobot system where the robot requires only the commands from the human to perform its tasks as proposed. In this system a relatively more flexible and robust communication technique generates commands from Electromyogram (EMG) signals. Such an autonomous mobile humanoid robot will be able to assist in a workshop environment and interact with a human. Three aspects to reach this target are considered. First, how the brain (embedded system technologies) of the exoskeleton robot is constructed to be able to manipulate objects like humans do. Second, exploration of appropriate biosignals that can be used as an actuating quantity to move the Robotic Arm; and finally how programming of manipulation tasks are realized.

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This paper describes the design, control, and testing of a Human Muscle Enhancer (HME) system that will augment the muscle capabilities of subjects requiring partial lower-limb weight-bearing gait support. The HME described in this paper is a pneumatically actuated quick connec-ting exoskeleton system that attaches to the foot and hip area of the body, thus “closing the lower body kinematic chain. Control of the system is achieved by using encoders at the knee joints and Myo-Pneumatic (MP) Sensors implanted into the shoes and outer garments of the human. To test this design concept, a lower body exoskeleton test fixture has been fabricated. The test fixture mimics the human leg with the top cylinder providing the body weight on the leg. Another cylinder acts as leg muscles to provide the adjustable human reaction of the leg. Preliminary open and closed loop control tests have been performed that demonstate the capability of controlling the HME using the MP sensors.

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