Haptic human-robot collaboration for walker-assisted navigation based on admittance controllers

Sierra M., Sergio D.; Jimenez, Mario F.; Munera, Marcela; Cifuentes, Carlos A.; Frizera, Anselmo

Abstract

In recent years, advances in robotics and the constant growth of gait-related pathologies led to the development of different assistive devices. Smart walkers provide natural and intuitive strategies for gait assistance, such as path-following and guidance. Although these functionalities usually employ shared control approaches, the users' level of participation has yet to be assessed. This work presents the implementation of three modulation strategies for assisted navigation tasks. A path-following algorithm and a set of admittance-based controllers modulate the control authority between the user and the device. A group of 20 healthy subjects formed the validation group. Results showed a kinematic estimation error of 0.13 m for the strategy that shared the control authority with the user. Statistical tests found significant differences regarding the naturalness of the proposed approach (p-value of 0.00587).

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 27, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Mar 24, 2023
• Publication Date: May 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: May 10, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: May 15, 2023
• Journal: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
• Print ISSN: 2377-3766
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 2622-2628
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2023.3256924
• Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Control and Optimization, Computer Science Applications, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Mechanical Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, Biomedical Engineering, Control and Systems Engineering
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10582543
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10068763