NRI: Task-Based Assistance for Software-Enabled Biomedical Devices

1637764 - murphey机器人辅助设备帮助人们执行和学习物理任务。有时这些任务相对简单，有时它们在特定的环境中，有时它们是高度动态的，非常具体的任务。这项工作将创建算法，使交付的帮助能够考虑底层任务的算法描述。例如，步行是一项高度结构化的任务，同时要求运动过程中的效率和稳定性，并且必须考虑地形特征。这项工作利用任务知识来改变人的运动或施加力来帮助人完成任务。这种能力与康复和物理治疗有关，为了改善治疗效果，人们可能希望只对患者提供最低限度的帮助。因此，这项工作将影响软件的发展，以支持从事机器人辅助物理治疗的人，包括从各种形式的伤害中恢复的人。这项工作的关键是，对任务的了解与对人的能力的了解相结合，以综合软件决策，确保安全，同时最大化人在运动中的代理。这项工作的更广泛影响包括技术转移到康复，通过芝加哥科学与工业博物馆的推广，课堂创新和行业合作。拟议的工作将为辅助生物医学设备创建软件启用的、特定任务的支持。动态任务要求机器人和辅助人员的结合既有效又安全，拟议的研究将创建算法和软件，以确保效率和安全，同时让用户自由移动和努力。后者在物理治疗等环境中很重要，在物理治疗中，努力对治疗效果很重要。提出的工作将利用人在环系统实时非线性最优控制技术的最新成果。具体来说，顺序动作控制（SAC）将使用一种称为麦克斯韦妖算法的方法来过滤和辅助人类受试者的动态行为。这项工作还将开发正式的方法，为所提议的算法建立稳定性和性能保证。最后，提出的工作将开发适用于计算最小的嵌入式系统的控制辅助算法的紧凑表示。所有的工作都将在机器人操作系统（ROS）中开发，使开发的工具广泛地提供给研究人员和公司。这些算法将在触觉设备和外骨骼上进行测试。这项工作的更广泛影响将包括外联、向康复转移技术、拟订动力和分析课程以及工业合作。PI目前正在与科学与工业博物馆合作，作为拟议工作的一部分，PI和支持的学生将参加在博物馆主圆形大厅举行的国家机器人周展览，预计现场观众将超过10,000人。PI参与了重大的课堂创新，并且提议的工作将包括开发分析和动力学课程。最后，该项目将包括与Ekso Bionics的合作，利用并影响他们在外骨骼开发方面无与伦比的专业知识。

1637764 - MurpheyRobotic assistive devices help people execute and learn physical tasks. Sometimes these tasks are relatively simple, sometimes they are in a particular context, and sometimes they are highly dynamic and very task specific. This work will create algorithms that enable the delivered assistance to take into account algorithmic descriptions of the underlying task. As an example, walking is a highly structured task that simultaneously requires efficiency and stability during motion and must take into account terrain characteristics. The work takes advantage of task knowledge to either modify a person's motion or exert forces that help the person complete the task. This capability is relevant to rehabilitation and physical therapy, where one may wish to only minimally help a person in order to improve therapy outcomes. This work will therefore impact the development of software that supports people engaged in robot-assisted physical therapy, including people recovering from various forms of injury. The key to this work is that knowledge of a task is combined with knowledge of a person's capabilities to synthesize software decisions that ensure safety while also maximizing a person's agency during motion. Broader impact of this work includes technology transfer to rehabilitation, outreach through the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, classroom innovation, and industry collaboration.The proposed work will create software-enabled, task-specific support for assistive biomedical devices. Dynamic tasks require that a combination of the robot and the assisted person be both effective and safe, and the proposed research will create algorithms and software that ensure efficacy and safety while leaving the user free to both move and exert effort. The latter is important in contexts like physical therapy, where effort is important to therapeutic impact. The proposed work will leverage recent results in real-time nonlinear optimal control techniques for human-in-the-loop systems. Specifically, sequential action control (SAC) will be used to both filter and assist human subject dynamic behavior, using a method called the Maxwell's Demon Algorithm. The work will additionally develop formal methodologies for establishing stability and performance guarantees for the proposed algorithms. Lastly, the proposed work will develop compact representations of the controlled assistance algorithms appropriate for computationally minimal embedded systems. All the work will be developed in the Robot Operating System (ROS), making the developed tools widely available to both researchers and companies. The algorithms will be tested on haptic devices and an exoskeleton. The broader impacts for this work will include outreach, technology transfer to rehabilitation, the development of courses in dynamics and analysis, and industrial collaboration. The PI is currently working with the Museum of Science and Industry, and as part of the proposed work the PI and supported students will participate in a National Robotics Week exhibit in the main rotunda of the museum with an estimated viewership of over ten thousand on-site visitors. The PI is involved in significant classroom innovations, and the proposed work will include development of courses in analysis and dynamics. Lastly, the project will include a collaboration with Ekso Bionics, leveraging and impacting their unparalleled expertise in exoskeleton development.