NRI: Adaptive Wearable Robots for Movement Assistance via Bio-Inspired Sensorimotor Integration

这笔赠款将通过实现新的功能和提高辅助上肢可穿戴机器人的技术水平，对人类健康和生活质量产生有益影响，以增强运动障碍患者的功能独立性。上肢可穿戴机器人使用安装在身体上的传感器和执行器来监控人类用户，并预测意图，以动态适应和提供物理帮助。这些设备被设想为长期的日常辅助，因此可能成为各种行动障碍的主要治疗方法，包括脑瘫，这是儿童严重肢体残疾的最常见原因。然而，可穿戴机器人的进步一直受到致动器和控制技术领域关键知识空白的限制，而且此类设备并不广泛使用。该奖项支持开发受生物启发的新型软机器人执行器和人类-机器人控制算法的研究，以实现舒适、低成本、高功率的可穿戴机器人与人类用户无缝连接。开发的技术将适用于一般用途，包括为老年人提供身体辅助，并适用于制造业、护理和其他工业部门。通过学者和临床医生的合作，该项目将在科学、工程和技术发展之间建立联系，以增进人类健康。该项目整合了西班牙裔服务机构加州大学河滨分校的K-12外联活动，以扩大代表性不足群体的参与。日常生活中的大多数任务都涉及到与环境的物理相互作用，这是通过直接调节联合阻抗来促进的。因此，与关节平行布置的上肢可穿戴机器人需要阻抗调制能力。然而，对形态的限制禁止使用复杂的控制器进行物理交互，包括高带宽电机的阻抗控制。这项研究将利用生物学原理设计具有直接阻抗调制能力的新型可穿戴机器人，包括利用肌肉拓扑、传感器-电机耦合，以及利用致动器的被动属性来实现稳定性。研究团队将开发具有阻抗调制能力的新型软执行器、用于主动调制阻抗的本体感觉反射环，以及通过非侵入性神经接口调节机器人阻抗的人在环控制器。一系列人体实验将评估原型设备的功效。该项目将贡献辅助可穿戴机器人领域的方法和理论，重点关注儿科运动障碍，从而深入了解有运动障碍的个人和神经典型参与者在有和没有机器人协助的情况下的肌肉协调、技能获得和物体操作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This grant will beneficially impact human health and quality of life by enabling new functionality and improving the state of the art in assistive upper-limb wearable robots to amplify the functional independence of people with movement disorders. Upper-limb wearable robots use body-mounted sensors and actuators to monitor the human user and predict intention to dynamically adapt and provide physical assistance. These devices are envisioned for long-term daily assistance, and could therefore become a primary treatment for a variety of mobility impairments, including cerebral palsy, the most common cause of serious physical disability in childhood. However, the advancement of wearable robots has been limited by critical knowledge gaps in the areas of actuator and control technologies, and such devices are not widely available. This award supports research to develop novel bio-inspired soft robotic actuators and human-robot control algorithms to enable comfortable, low-cost, high-power wearable robots that seamlessly interface with human users. The technologies developed will be adaptable to general use, including providing physical assistance to the elderly, and for deployment in manufacturing, nursing, and other industrial sectors. Through collaborations among academics and clinicians, this project will form linkages between science and engineering and technology development to enhance human health. The project integrates K-12 outreach events at the University of California, Riverside, a Hispanic Serving Institution, to broaden the participation of under-represented groups. Most tasks in daily life involve physical interaction with the environment, facilitated by direct modulation of joint impedances. Upper-limb wearable robots arranged parallel to the joints therefore require impedance modulation capabilities. However, constraints on the morphology prohibit the use of sophisticated controllers for physical interaction, including impedance control with high bandwidth motors. This research will harness biological principles to design novel wearable robots with direct impedance modulation capabilities, including leveraging muscle topology, sensorimotor coupling, and exploiting the passive properties of actuators for stability. The research team will develop novel soft actuators with impedance modulation capabilities, proprioceptive reflex loops for actively modulating impedance, and human-in-the-loop controllers to regulate robot impedance through a non-invasive neural interface. A series of human experiments will evaluate the efficacy of the prototype devices. This project will contribute methods and theories in the area of assistive wearable robots with a focus on pediatric movement impairments, resulting in insight into muscle coordination, skill acquisitions, and object manipulation in individuals with motor impairments and neurotypical participants, with and without robotic assistance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.