Issues on the Control of Robotic Systems Worn by Humans

Through any reasonable observation and experience, the human\´s ability to perform a variety of physical tasks is limited by his¹ intelligence, but by his physical strength. If, in the appropriate environment, we can more closely integrate the mechanical power of a machine with the human hand under the supervisory control of the human\´s intellect, we will then have a system which is superior to a loosely integrated combination of a human and his fully automated robot as in the present day robotic systems. We must, therefore, develop a fundamental approach to the problem of this "extending" human mechanical power in certain environments. Extenders are defined as robot manipulators which extend (i.e., increase) the strength of the human arm in load maneuvering tasks, while the human maintains control of the task. Part of the extender motion is caused by physical power from the human; the rest of the extender motion results from force signals measured at the physical interfaces between the human and the extender, and the load an the extender. Therefore, the human wearing the extender exchanges both power and information signals with the extender. References 1-4 focus on the issues of the dynamics and control of human machine interaction in the sense of the transfer power and information signals while this paper presents a summary of the research work.