In developed countries, an aging society has become a serious issue; many activities of daily living (ADL) are impaired in the elder-ly. In order to improve this situation, it is necessary to develop an assisting method for the human standingup motion because it is considered to be an important factor to ADL. It is unclear, however, how humans coordinate their multiple distributed actuators, muscles, due to the ill-posed problem of redundant their body system. In this paper, we analyze the human standing-up motion based on muscle coordinations, called synergies. A simulation method was developed to make mappings between muscle activations, joint torque, and the human body trajectory; thus, it can be predicted how modular muscle coordinations contribute to the motion. As a result, two primary synergies were extracted and how they coordinate to achieve the motion was elucidated; one synergy strongly affected joint movements and speed of the motion while bending the back and lifting the body up, and the other synergy controls their posture after they lift up their body. These findings could be useful for development of an assisting robotic system for rehabilitative training based on extracted distributed synergies from complex redundant human motion.

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The Exoskeleton is classified inside of a wider technology known as Wearable Robots, that group describes a robotic field who studies the interaction between the human body and the robotics. In those systems, a mechatronics structure is attached to different members of the human body, and while the wearer commands the mechanical system using physical signals, like the electronic stimulation produced by the orders of the brain, or the movements of the body generated by the muscles; the mechanical system do the hard work, like carrying heavier objects or helping the movement of handicaps members of the body. Since its conception in the sixties (Croshaw, 1969) the bibliography speaks about two models of wearable robots: the prosthetics and the orthotics systems. The first group replaces the lost body members, while the second one assists to the body movements or, in other cases, extends the body capabilities.

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The metabolic cost of hopping is reduced with the assistance of an exoskeleton that places a spring in parallel with the entire leg. Energy stored and returned by the spring replaces work that otherwise would be done by muscle-tendon units (MTU). Similarly, exoskeletons bridging only the ankle joint can replace work from ankle plantarflexors. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to test if a spring-loaded ankle exoskeleton could reduce the rate of metabolic energy consumption during hopping. It was hypothesized that net metabolic power would be reduced when an ankle exoskeleton with a spring assisting plantar-flexion was used due to less work being done by the plantar-flexor muscles.

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Досліджуємо задачу математичного моделювання ходи людини з екзоскелетоном. Екзоскелетон (екзоскелет) – це механічний пристрій, який дозволяє збільшити м’язову силу людини за допомогою зовнішнього каркасу; він представляє собою корсет, що складаєься із стержнів, з’єднаних між собою шарнірами. Одним із важливих застосувань екзоскелетона є реабілітація людей із частково (або повністю) втраченими локомоційними функціями нижніх кінцівок. Отримані результати є подальшим розвитком оптимізаційного підходу та алгоритмів математичного моделювання ходи людини.

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In the domain of space exploration, as in other dangerous environments, strength, endurance, and dexterity are key issues to insure the health of the involved people. Hands are by their very nature one of our primary interfaces to influence and interact with the external world. For these reasons, at the center for Space Humanoid Robotics (SHR) we are studying ways to help cosmonauts overcome the stiffness of the gloves used for extra vehicular activity (EVA) by mean of a lightweight active hand exoskeleton. In this paper we position our work on electromyography (EMG) of the upper limbs as a tool to control a device like the hand exoskeleton. In fact, we are studying EMG signals to extrapolate information about the muscular status of the hands and concurrently we are using the information to support cosmonauts movement.

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