Human balance augmentation via a supernumerary robotic tail

Abstract

Humans are intrinsically unstable in quiet stance from a rigid body system viewpoint; however, they maintain balance thanks to muscular and neuro-sensory properties whilst still exhibiting postural sway characteristics. This work introduces a one-degree-of-freedom supernumerary tail for balance augmentation in the sagittal plane to negate anteriorposterior postural sway. Simulations showed that the tail could successfully balance a human with impaired ankle stiffness and neural control. Insights into tail design and control were made; namely, to minimise muscular load the tail must have a significant component in the direction of the muscle load, mounting location of the tail is significant in maximising inertial properties for balance augmentation and that adaptive control will exploit augmentation characteristic of the tail best for different loads held by a wearer.

Towards Enhanced Stability of Human Stance With a Supernumerary Robotic Tail

“…A simulation study was conducted to assess the joint actuation, inertial and geometric characteristics of a supernumerary robotic tail to augment human balance. A human of height 1.8 m, CoM h located 0.997 m directly above the ankle joint, mass m of 82.2 kg and inertia of 12.92 kg-m 2 was simulated [21]. In line with the study of [2], ankle mechanical stiffness was set as k p = 0.8mgh Nm and k v = 4 Nm/s with respect to Eq.…”

Mechanical Characterization of Supernumerary Robotic Tails for Human Balance Augmentation

“…Our recent work, investigated the ability of a one-dof revolute robotic tail to augment quiet standing balance [20]. In this work, the kinematic and dynamic characteristics of a series of one and two-dof robotic tails, and their suitability to augment human balance against gravitational instability is examined.…”