Humanoid Robots

For many years, the human being has been trying, in all ways, to recreate the complex mechanisms that form the human body. Such task is extremely complicated and the results are not totally satisfactory. However, with increasing technological advances based on theoretical and experimental researches, man gets, in a way, to copy or to imitate some systems of the human body. These researches not only intended to create humanoid robots, great part of them constituting autonomous systems, but also, in some way, to offer a higher knowledge of the systems that form the human body, objectifying possible applications in the technology of rehabilitation of human beings, gathering in a whole studies related not only to Robotics, but also to Biomechanics, Biomimmetics, Cybernetics, among other areas. This book presents a series of researches inspired by this ideal, carried through by various researchers worldwide, looking for to analyze and to discuss diverse subjects related to humanoid robots. The presented contributions explore aspects about robotic hands, learning, language, vision and locomotion

The Future of Humanoid Robots

This book provides state of the art scientific and engineering research findings and developments in the field of humanoid robotics and its applications. It is expected that humanoids will change the way we interact with machines, and will have the ability to blend perfectly into an environment already designed for humans. The book contains chapters that aim to discover the future abilities of humanoid robots by presenting a variety of integrated research in various scientific and engineering fields, such as locomotion, perception, adaptive behavior, human-robot interaction, neuroscience and machine learning. The book is designed to be accessible and practical, with an emphasis on useful information to those working in the fields of robotics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computational methods and other fields of science directly or indirectly related to the development and usage of future humanoid robots. The editor of the book has extensive R&D experience, patents, and publications in the area of humanoid robotics, and his experience is reflected in editing the content of the book

HUMANOID LOCOMOTION MANIPULATED USING DYNAMIC FINGER GESTURES

The fundamental technologies for Human-Computer Interaction are Hand motion tracking and Gesture Identification. The same technology has been adapted for Human-Robot Interaction. This paper discusses a natural methodology for Human-Robot Interaction. In the proposed system, the accelerometers at the fingers, tracks specific gestures. These gestures are identified by the controller, which in turn controls the actuators that results in Humanoid walking. The Humanoid under consideration has 8 Degrees of Freedom

A new approach on human-robot collaboration with humanoid robot RH-2

This paper was originally submitted under the auspices of the CLAWAR Association. It is an extension of work presented at CLAWAR 2009: The 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines, Istanbul, Turkey.This paper presents a novel control architecture for humanoid robot RH-2. The main objective is that a robot can perform different tasks in collaboration with humans in working environments. In order to achieve this goal, two control loops have to be defined. The outer loop, called collaborative control loop, is devoted to the generation of stable motion patterns for a robot, given a specific manipulation task. The inner loop, called posture stability control loop, acts to guarantee the stability of humanoid for different poses determined by motion patterns. A case study is presented in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed control architecture.This work has been supported by the CAM Project S2009/DPI-1559/ROBOCITY2030 II, the CYCIT Project PI2004-00325 and the European Project Robot@CWE FP6-2005-IST-5

A Posture Sequence Learning System for an Anthropomorphic Robotic Hand

The paper presents a cognitive architecture for posture learning of an anthropomorphic robotic hand. Our approach is aimed to allow the robotic system to perform complex perceptual operations, to interact with a human user and to integrate the perceptions by a cognitive representation of the scene and the observed actions. The anthropomorphic robotic hand imitates the gestures acquired by the vision system in order to learn meaningful movements, to build its knowledge by different conceptual spaces and to perform complex interaction with the human operator

Legged locomotion over irregular terrains: State of the art of human and robot performance

Legged robotic technologies have moved out of the lab to operate in real environments, characterized by a wide variety of unpredictable irregularities and disturbances, all this in close proximity with humans. Demonstrating the ability of current robots to move robustly and reliably in these conditions is becoming essential to prove their safe operation. Here, we report an in-depth literature review aimed at verifying the existence of common or agreed protocols and metrics to test the performance of legged system in realistic environments. We primarily focused on three types of robotic technologies, i.e., hexapods, quadrupeds and bipeds. We also included a comprehensive overview on human locomotion studies, being it often considered the gold standard for performance, and one of the most important sources of bioinspiration for legged machines. We discovered that very few papers have rigorously studied robotic locomotion under irregular terrain conditions. On the contrary, numerous studies have addressed this problem on human gait, being nonetheless of highly heterogeneous nature in terms of experimental design. This lack of agreed methodology makes it challenging for the community to properly assess, compare and predict the performance of existing legged systems in real environments. On the one hand, this work provides a library of methods, metrics and experimental protocols, with a critical analysis on the limitations of the current approaches and future promising directions. On the other hand, it demonstrates the existence of an important lack of benchmarks in the literature, and the possibility of bridging different disciplines, e.g., the human and robotic, towards the definition of standardized procedure that will boost not only the scientific development of better bioinspired solutions, but also their market uptake

Robotic and Sensor Technologies for Mobility in Older People

Maintaining independent mobility is fundamental to independent living and to the quality of life of older people. Robotic and sensor technologies may offer a lot of potential and can make a significant difference in the lives of older people and to their primary caregivers. The aim of this study was to provide a presentation of the methods that are used up till now for analysis and evaluation of human mobility utilizing sensor technologies and to give the state of the art in robotic platforms for supporting older people with mobility limitations. The literature was reviewed and systematic reviews of cohort studies and other authoritative reports were identified. The selection criteria included (1) patients with age â\u89¥60 years; (2) patients with unstable gait, with or without recurrent falls; (3) patients with slow movements, short strides, and little trunk movement; (4) sensor technologies that are currently used for mobility evaluation; and (5) robotic technologies that can serve as a supporting companion for older people with mobility limitations. One hundred eighty-one studies published up until February 2017 were identified, of which 36 were included. Two categories of research were identified from the review regarding the robot and sensor technologies: (1) sensor technologies for mobility analysis and (2) robots for supporting older people with mobility limitations. Potential for robotic and sensor technologies can be taken advantage of for evaluation and support at home for elder persons with mobility limitations in an automated way without the need of the physical presence of any medical personnel, reducing the stress of caregivers