Study on forearm swing recognition algorithms to drive the underwater power‐assisted device of frogman

Abstract

AbstractThe frogmen have a great demand for the underwater power‐assisted device (UPaD) because of their poor working conditions and complex missions. Although the wearable power‐assisted device on land has been diversified, the development of UPaDs is relatively slow. Meanwhile, the most of current small frogman transport equipment is needed to be manipulated by the frogmen with their hands with the aim of changing their moving speed or posture, which increases the difficulty of frogmen executing their tasks. The major contribution of this paper is to develop a method that frees the hands and realizes power assisting at the same time for frogmen, which can be applied to drive the UPaDs of frogmen. Two posture recognition algorithms based on the Human–Computer Interface have been promoted. The algorithms can recognize the forearm swings of the wearer of UPaD, calculate the frequency of the wearer's forearm swing, and adjust the moving speed of the wearer's UPaD according to the wearer's forearm swing frequency. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of two algorithms recognizing forearm swings underwater from four different subjects. Meanwhile, one of the two algorithms is improved and evaluated by experiments from the previous four subjects. The results of accuracy of two algorithms recognizing the wearer's forearm swing are more than 90%. The performance of the speed regulating system of UPaD based on the designed two algorithms is also acceptable.