Smart physical human-exoskeleton interfaces for wearable robots
ID
MSCA-2020-BVanderborght04
Supervisors
Project description
Although assistive exoskeletons are starting to appear in factories, several technological issues are still preventing wearable robots from being adopted on a wide scale. One of these issues is the lack of ergonomic interfaces which, moreover, are effective at providing the desired assistance to the user.
There are several factors that influence the wearability and comfort of wearable robots. Kinematic misalignment, pressure concentrations created by the interface, lack of breathability, and long donning and doffing times are but some of the reasons why current interfaces fail to deliver a satisfactory performance. Furthermore, most interfaces generate a large amount of lost motion, which prevents exoskeletons from being controlled in a transparent, intuitive and effective way.
Within this project, you would study the design of highly wearable multi-material interfaces that connect humans with wearable robots, with strong focus on exoskeleton/exosuit technologies. The ideal candidate should have a background in textile, mechanical, electronic or biomedical engineering, with a sound interest in multidisciplinary research combining these fields. Depending on your expertise and interests, you could work on novel, ergonomic mechanical designs, the integration of sensors, the modelling and characterization of physical human- exoskeleton interaction, the implementation of the smart interfaces in wearable robots, the development of ergonomic and effective control strategies, or studies on the effect of physical interfaces on the perceived comfort and effectiveness of assistance.
R&MM group offers a creative atmosphere with state-of-the-art lab equipment and several readily available exoskeletons and bionic prostheses on which the interfaces can be implemented to efficiently create several possible case studies for your research.
About the research Group
Brussels Human Robotics Research Center
The Robotics & MultiBody Mechanics research group of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) started its activities in 1990. In 1995 they started the research on soft actuators in legged robots to absorb impact, interact with an unknown environment and energy efficiency. Currently, the group is well known for the design and control of variable stiffness actuators, implemented in robots with applications in physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) and cognitive HRI (cHRI). During last years, within the group were developed the compliant actuators Pleated Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PPAM 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0), different versions of the MACCEPA actuator and the SPEA actuator, funded by an ERC Starting Grant and initiated the research towards self-healing actuators. In the ERC we worked on the ambitious breakthrough to develop a material-oriented solution by implementing self-healing (SH) materials for actuators, for which was collaborated with material scientists (VUB-FYSC).
Appropriate control architectures for soft actuators are designed for improved safety, robustness and energy efficiency. The actuators are implemented on different legged robots like the monopod OLIE, the pneumatic biped Lucy, the MACCEPA powered Veronica and H2R biped and the hopping robot Chobino1D. The research towards legged robots and Variable Stiffness Actuators also lead to the development of prostheses (ankle-foot IPPAM, AMPFOOT 1.0-4.0, currently made a spinoff company Axiles Bionics and the knee-ankle HEKTA and Cyberlegs prostheses) and exoskeletons for the lower limbs like Altacro, CORBYS, Biomot and Mirad. The research is performed from fundamental studies, towards application driven research and valorization and is core lab in the Flemish Strategic Research Center “Flanders Make” for the manufacturing industry. R&MM is the leader in the BruBOTICS consortium combining all robotics related expertise of the VUB together from exact and applied sciences (AI, sensors), human physiology and rehabilitation and social/economic studies with more than 90 academic researchers.
Recently, there is a strong trend in both the research community and in the industry toward the development of collaborative robots, the so called cobots. R&MM researchers successfully accomplished a project in manufacturing robots, the ICON Claxon during which the first coworking robot was installed on the assembly line of Audi. In another project SBO-Yves, apart from workspace sharing, also collaborative assembly is investigated, combining the strengths of both the human and the robot while taking the ergonomic load of the human into account. Finally, R&MM group is involved in studies on ergonomics: Flanders Make ICONs Ergoeyehand (improving ergonomics by cobots), ICON Smarthandler (manipulation heavy objects) and the ICON Prorob (VR/AR based robot trajectory programming to improve ergonomics and productivity).Up to now R&MM group was involved in 14 EU projects and 1 ERC grant and counts 45 researchers, working in strong multidisciplinary teams.