Abstract
Robotic remote-control technologies have a wide field of applications. Bilateral control is a type of remote-control technique. Most of the existing bilateral control techniques require complicated force transmission mechanisms in the master systems. Therefore, operators feel discomfort due to a sense of restraint by the exoskeleton-type robot arms. We attempted to solve this problem by incorporating functional electrical stimulation into the master system. In this study, bilateral control was proposed between a human and a three-joint robot with three degrees of freedom using functional electrical stimulation for shoulder and elbow joints. The experiment consisted of extracting a block of Jenga using the slave robot. The proposed method was compared to unilateral control in which the master moves freely without feedback to the master.
Highlights
Robotic remote-control technologies are used in several domains, such as the medical field and extreme environments like the space [1], [2]
We showed that a reaction force can be induced in finger motions using bilateral control for the thumb and middle finger of two subjects using functional electrical stimulation (FES) [12]
To the best of knowledge, bilateral control between humans and robots in the shoulder joint using FES has not been proposed in the conventional studies, and the three-dimensional motion has not been demonstrated
Summary
Robotic remote-control technologies are used in several domains, such as the medical field and extreme environments like the space [1], [2]. Conventional studies have proposed bilateral control between humans and robots using FES in the hand, elbow joint, and foot [16]–[18]. It is more useful in the master system with multiple degrees of freedom (DoF) such as shoulders and fingers, because mechanical structures to display multi DoF reaction force is almost impossibly difficult. To the best of knowledge, bilateral control between humans and robots in the shoulder joint using FES has not been proposed in the conventional studies, and the three-dimensional motion has not been demonstrated. In this study, we propose bilateral control with three DoF between a human and a three-joint robot using FES for shoulder and elbow joints.
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