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Dang, Jinqiang; You, Hwankyun; Tanaka, Hiroto
doi: 10.1080/01691864.2024.2391821pmid: N/A
Hummingbirds demonstrate remarkable robustness to wing defects by maintaining stable hovering during the molting process. However, mimicking these capabilities in flapping-wing robots presents significant challenges. To investigate the effectiveness of various controllers in maintaining the attitude of a hummingbird-mimetic flapping-wing robot against external disturbances under different wing defects, this study implemented a PD controller, a PID controller, and a three-loop feedback controller with a disturbance observer (3L-DOB controller). The flapping-wing robot features a pair of wings and controls its body’s yaw, pitch, and roll rotations by modulating the tension of wing membranes and the neutral positions of wing torsion. The performance of these controllers was evaluated through semi-tethered experiments on a gimbal, employing three Wing Sets: intact wings, one wing was defective, and both wings were defective. The defective wing emulated hummingbird wing during molting, in which the wing area was cropped by 14.1%. As a result, the 3L-DOB controller showed the best performance in terms of responsiveness and accuracy across all Wing Sets, while the PID controller also achieved comparable performance.
Amaike, Hayato; Fukuhara, Akira; Kano, Takeshi; Ishiguro, Akio
doi: 10.1080/01691864.2024.2376030pmid: N/A
Quadrupedal mammals adaptively change their direction, and their behavior is remarkable when they initiate such turns. They flexibly alter their interlimb coordination patterns when transitioning from forward to turning motion. However, the turning performance of quadruped robots is low compared to that of animals. We attempted to understand the control mechanism underlying the animal's flexible turning behavior by developing a simple robot model. We hypothesize that animals achieve lateral acceleration during transitions by adjusting the position of their limbs sideways at ground contact. On this basis, we proposed a decentralized control model for limb steering in quadrupedal turning behavior. The results obtained from the robot simulation demonstrated that either a turn initiated by the medial forelimb or the lateral forelimb occurred depending on the timing of the turn command. The fact that the proposed control algorithm could reproduce the behavior observed in animals suggests that a mechanism similar to the algorithm may exist in animals. Biological verification is expected in the future.
Jiang, Yelin; Li, Yiqi; Hosoda, Koh
doi: 10.1080/01691864.2024.2363394pmid: N/A
The proprioceptive sensory reflex (e.g. stretch reflex) plays an important role in perturbed arm stabilization. Neuroscience studies have widely identified the heteronymous spinal pathways in the human arm, which may contribute to stabilized movement. However, their interactions in living systems pose challenges for specific functional investigations through human experiments. Therefore, this paper concentrates on understanding the effects of two heteronymous pathways, specifically the transmission of monoarticular sensory feedback to innervate biarticular muscles, using the robot. We replicate specific reflex pathways on a 2-DoF musculoskeletal robot equipped with pneumatic artificial muscles. By adjusting the weights of pathways, which resemble human motor control, we evaluate our robot arm performance under the forearm and upper arm disturbances. The outcomes validate their effects on regulating biarticular muscle stimulation, resulting in more stable and coordinated end-effectory trajectories. These reflexive pathways provide insights into the mechanisms underlying human arm perturbations and stabilization. Additionally, the proposed bioinspired system with applicable reflex weights holds great potential in the adaptive response of musculoskeletal robots, guiding robotics researchers in controller design.
Nipatphonsakun, Kawinna; Kawasetsu, Takumi; Hosoda, Koh
doi: 10.1080/01691864.2024.2362201pmid: N/A
This paper introduces the foot-slip turning motion by combining a slider-like mechanism with the double-support parallel spring-loaded inverted pendulum model, in which the musculoskeletal robot uses the model to simplify the slip-turning motion with its compliant structure and utilizes the foot muscle to improve its postural stability. The slip-turning motion, characterized by slight movements for swift turning via foot slippage, is advantageous for musculoskeletal robots due to their limited range of movement. The challenge lies in the reduced support area during the motion, which impacts stability. In our previous study, the robot ‘PneuTurn-T’ successfully executed said motion, whereas the details of the turning mechanism were lacking. This study investigated the utilization of leg compliance in the motion and its static postural stability in the landing stance. Experimental results exhibited a leg compression rate derived from the collected data in the early phase of the motion and validated intrinsic toe joint stabilization with foot muscle for passive postural control. The ground reaction force proves the capability to maintain the posture for 130% longer in the foot with plantar intrinsic muscle. Despite structural challenges, this approach shows promise for musculoskeletal robots, highlighting their ability to handle a turning task with simple control.
Shigaki, Shunsuke; Yanagisawa, Ryota; Shiota, Yusuke; Hosoda, Koh
doi: 10.1080/01691864.2024.2358433pmid: N/A
In this study, we experimentally evaluated a signal-processing method for the stable use of an insect antenna as an odor sensor for a robot because of its excellent sensitivity and selectivity to odors. Changes in potential in response to an odor stimulus can be measured when the electrodes are connected to both ends of an insect antenna. This is called an electroantennogram (EAG), and is a type of physiological response. Hence, we must extract only the EAG waveform using appropriate signal processing because it has a low signal-to-noise ratio. Accordingly, we applied signal processing based on an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA), which demonstrates excellent real-time performance, to an EAG to eliminate high-frequency noise. Moreover, we experimentally investigated the sampling rate to properly measure the EAG. From the results, the EAG-driven robot with the designed signal processing demonstrated a search performance of more than 70 $ \% $ % , even in odor-source localization experiments with different types of moths and environments.
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