ARTS Lab, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34, 56025, Pontedera (Pi), Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2011;11(1):207-27. doi: 10.3390/s110100207. Epub 2010 Dec 28.
A sensory apparatus to monitor pressure distribution on the physical human-robot interface of lower-limb exoskeletons is presented. We propose a distributed measure of the interaction pressure over the whole contact area between the user and the machine as an alternative measurement method of human-robot interaction. To obtain this measure, an array of newly-developed soft silicone pressure sensors is inserted between the limb and the mechanical interface that connects the robot to the user, in direct contact with the wearer's skin. Compared to state-of-the-art measures, the advantage of this approach is that it allows for a distributed measure of the interaction pressure, which could be useful for the assessment of safety and comfort of human-robot interaction. This paper presents the new sensor and its characterization, and the development of an interaction measurement apparatus, which is applied to a lower-limb rehabilitation robot. The system is calibrated, and an example its use during a prototypical gait training task is presented.
本文提出了一种用于监测下肢外骨骼物理人机界面压力分布的传感装置。我们提出了一种分布测量方法，用于测量用户与机器之间整个接触区域的交互压力，作为人机交互的替代测量方法。为了获得这种测量，在肢体和连接机器人与用户的机械接口之间插入了一组新开发的软硅胶压力传感器阵列，与佩戴者的皮肤直接接触。与现有技术相比，这种方法的优点在于它可以实现交互压力的分布式测量，这对于评估人机交互的安全性和舒适性可能非常有用。本文介绍了新型传感器及其特性，以及交互测量装置的开发，该装置应用于下肢康复机器人。该系统进行了校准，并展示了在原型步态训练任务期间使用该系统的示例。
