17 accepted papers
A human foot with high degrees of freedom (DOF) that has multi-DOF toe joints and a two-DOF ankle provides multiple benefits, such as increased stride length and walking speed, impact mitigation, and enhanced balancing. However, creating such mechanisms for legged robots has been challenging due to…
We introduce StaccaToe, a human-scale, electric motor-powered single-leg robot designed to rival the agility of human locomotion through two distinctive attributes: an actuated toe and a co-actuation configuration inspired by the human leg. Leveraging the foundational design of HyperLeg’s lower leg…
This letter presents a parametric delayed output feedback controller for various types of human-exoskeleton interactions during walking or running gait. The parametric delayed-feedback controller operates reliably during various gait pattern changes, utilizing three adjustable control parameters: sm
The demand for autonomous nasopharyngeal swab sampling robot systems is increasing owing to the recent outbreak of the respiratory virus pandemic. To protect the medical staff from infection, automatic upper respiratory sample collecting robotic systems are needed. The nasopharyngeal swab sampling r
Wheeled mobile robots have been receiving continuous attention in various fields because of their stability, efficiency, and simple mechanisms. However, most of them require significantly larger occupied space than humans and have limited maneuverability in the environment for humans, such as crowde
Soft growing robots that extend through tip eversion have attracted considerable interest owing to their unique locomotion. Although the availability of visual feedback from the tip of such robots would greatly enhance their usefulness in field explorations, given that the material at the tip contin
Accepting the heterogeneity of amputees and enabling them to walk comfortably using little effort with light weights is the main goal of prostheses. Moreover, providing the capability of walking on various ground conditions including uneven surfaces and obstacles is a challenging but important requi
Achieving both the precise pinching and compliant grasping capabilities is a challenging goal for most robotic hands and grippers. Moreover, an active transition between the pinching pose and the grasping pose is difficult for limited degrees-of-freedom (DOF) hands or grippers. Even when using high
This paper presents a three-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) gravity compensation mechanism for the waists of cooperative robots whose centers of mass change according to the arm poses. It comprises 2-DOF and 1-DOF gravity compensation mechanisms in series, and is capable of natural and agile motions such a…
This paper presents an adjustable knee joint for a wearable robot for the elderly, to provide physical gait assistance. In order to compensate for the translational and rotational movements of the knee in the sagittal plane as well as aligning the frontal plane, the proposed knee joint is implemente…
This letter presents a novel three degree-of-freedom finger mechanism that features excellent impact absorbing performance, high force, and precision comparable to human hands. Inspired by human fingers, it has a simple structure with a minimum number of rigid components: seven rigid frames, several
In this paper, a dual-arm robot system for high-speed manipulations, which is named LIMS2-AMBIDEX and is developed to compete in the IROS2018 Robotic Challenge, is presented. It has two seven-degrees-of-freedom (DO FF) lightweight arms, a three-DOF head, and a one-DOF gripper to manipulate foldable…
This paper presents a dexterous three degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) wrist mechanism with a large range of motion and uniform manipulability without singular points throughout the entire range of motion. It has a 2-DOF spherical pure rolling joint surrounded by two pairs of actuating wires, the motions o…
This paper proposes a new concept called “a flexible exoskeleton” and presents the design of a wearable walking assistance device to provide physical gait assistance for the elderly. To overcome some limitations of previous wearable walking assistance devices, 3 novel mechanisms are proposed: 1) fle…
This paper presents a high-force grip assist glove composed of soft and flexible materials. By using a new force distributing compliant structure, the proposed glove can assist high gripping force while adapting to human hand motion, which is difficult for conventional soft robotic gloves. The force…
This paper presents an adjustable knee mechanism for walking assistance devices for the elderly to provide physical gait assistance. The adjustable knee mechanism can assist in flexion/extension motions of the knee joint and compensate for the transitional movements of the knee in the sagittal plane…
This paper presents a novel manipulator for human-robot interaction that has low mass and inertia without losing stiffness and payload performance. A lightweight tension amplifying mechanism that increases the joint stiffness in quadratic order is proposed. High stiffness is essential for precise an…