In this paper, a mouse-shaped haptic device is proposed. The device solves conventional problems of previously developed devices such as structure and control complexity and operating difficulties. We adopted multiple finger inputs in order to carry out complicated tasks and in order to highly adapt to the environment. To develop the multi-fingered haptic device, we focused on anatomical knowledge and neurophysiology. Since there is a primacy of the visual information over somatic sensation, we believe the movable range of human fingers does not necessarily have to be completely satisfied, i.e. visual information can compensate for the difference between the displacement of the haptic device and that of the slave device in a master-slave system. We applied this feature to miniaturize and simplify the device. To confirm the usefulness of our developed device for a virtual reality system, we carried out three experiments: position control, familiarization and force feedback. The results show the effectiveness of the developed haptic device.

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Exoskeletons for human performance augmentation are controlled and wearable devices or machines that can increase the speed, strength, and endurance of the operator. So far most researchers focus on the upper limb exoskeletons. To help those who need to travel long distances by feet with heavy loads such as infantry soldiers, this paper presents a control principle of a lower extremity exoskeleton. An exoskeleton foot is designed to measure the human and the exoskeleton’s ZMP. Using the measured human ZMP as the reference together with the human leg position signals, the exoskeleton’s ZMP is modified by trunk compensation. Test prototypes and initial experiment results are also demonstrated.

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Our lower extremity exoskeleton is a wearable robotic device that enables a human to walk with a load for a prolonged period of time without reducing the human’s agility. The exoskeleton comprised of two anthropomorphic legs and a spine. The device is designed and controlled autonomously via a spine mounted internal combustion engine and PC104 compliant computer. Custom hardware was designed to accommodate the high-speed network required to link the distributed sensors and actuators. This paper presents the implementation of the high-speed hard real-time network designed to maintain stable control of the exoskeletonduring stance and walk. The high-speed ring protocol necessary to maintain strict hard real-time synchronization between the distributed sensors and actuator of the exoskeleton is presented. Communication latency was considered in the design with respect to its impact on performance, and stability. Error detection and recovery was crucial for operation with the exoskeleton. A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) algorithm was incorporated into the protocol to achieve this error detection. The use of this high-speed serial based network greatly minimized the number of cables required over traditional parallel-based systems. The achieved update time of up to 10 kHz for a six-actuator system enables the architecture to be viable system for most industrial controls.

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We proposed a power assist method for leg based on the autonomous motion driven by the interaction between human and the robot suit, HAL (hybrid assistive limb) and verified the effectiveness of this method in the experiments in walking. In order to perform walking task autonomically, we used a phase sequence control which generates a task by transiting some simple basic motions called phase. A task was divided into some phases on the basis of the task performed by a normal person. The joint moving modes were categorized into the active, passive and free modes according to the characteristic of the muscle force conditions. The autonomous motion which HAL generates in each phases were designed according to one of the categorized modes. The floor reaction force and joint angle were adopted as the condition to transit each phase. The experiments in power assist were performed for normal person. The experimental results showed that the muscle activation levels in each phase were significantly reduced. With this, we confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed assist method.

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Interaction between humans and robots must be signicantly improved before personal robot systems are widely accepted. Such improvements are a prerequisite for increasing the efciency of industrial robotic systems. This paper surveys current research in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Key objectives of HRI are examined, along with previous surveys and divisions of HRI. In order to achieve real gains in HRI the role of the human user must be considered. We present four model roles for human interaction with robots; operator interaction, social interaction, developer interaction and cybernetic interaction.

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