Interactive Gait Assistance Experience Lab

通过机器人系统辅助人类运动是一个有前途的同时也具有挑战性的研究领域。受人口老龄化等社会需求的推动，可穿戴机器人系统在辅助、恢复和训练运动功能方面的潜力得到了深入的研究。然而，由于与人类用户的密切互动，关于系统、组件和算法的开发仍然存在许多悬而未决的问题，特别是当考虑到人为因素时。因此，可穿戴机器人系统代表了Friedrich-Alexander-Universität erlangen - n<s:1> rnberg （FAU）工程学院几个系主任和部门的核心研究课题。我们的目标是探索以人为中心的机器人技术，并找到结合高功能和用户友好交互特性的解决方案。通过新的“交互式步态辅助体验实验室”，将大大扩展（运动）辅助系统中人机交互实验研究的可能性。重点是在现实环境中对生物力学和心理效应的调查，以分析它们与不同技术实现的相互作用，并系统地将研究结果纳入系统工程方法。除了运动场景的仿真外，与辅助系统的物理交互仿真也起着核心作用。人在环实验系统用于分析运动辅助（下肢）：通过结合市售产品来模拟物理和认知交互，用户可以在动态修改的虚拟环境中体验各种各样的机器人辅助系统。这使得个体的交互体验可以从生物力学和心理上得到更深入的理解，并在技术开发过程中，因此在机电一体化实施之前被考虑在内。这个主要的研究仪器结合了一个高度动态的，仪器化的双带跑步机，它可以通过沿着额外的自由度移动来产生扰动，与一个精确的运动捕捉系统，一个虚拟（运动）环境投影系统以及一个模拟假肢/外骨骼组件的模块化系统，它允许在实际实施之前对各种技术解决方案进行灵活的比较。这种设备的组合，这可能是世界上独一无二的，旨在装备FAU埃尔兰根-纽伦堡通过可穿戴机器人系统在运动辅助领域的跨学科前沿研究，从而创造了多样化（国际）国家合作的基础。

Assisting human movements via robotic systems is a promising and at the same time challenging research area. Motivated by societal needs, such as the aging population, the potential of wearable robotic systems to assist, restore, and train motor functions is investigated intensively. However, due to the close interaction with human users, many open questions remain regarding the development of the systems, components, and algorithms, especially when human factors are considered. Therefore, wearable robotic systems represent a core research topic of several chairs and departments of the Faculty of Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). Our goal is to explore human-centered robotics and to find solutions that combine high functionality and user-friendly interaction properties. Through the new "Interactive Gait Assistance Experience Lab", the possibilities for experimental examination of human-machine interaction in (locomotion) assistance systems will be significantly expanded. The focus is on the investigation of biomechanical and psychological effects in realistic contexts in order to analyze their interactions with different technical implementations and to systematically incorporate the findings into systems engineering methods. In addition to the simulation of the locomotion scenario, the emulation of the physical interaction with the assistance system plays a central role. The human-in-the-loop experimental system serves to analyze the motion assistance (of the lower extremities): By combining commercially available products for simulating physical and cognitive interaction, users can experience a wide variety of robotic assistance systems in a dynamically modifiable virtual environment. This allows individual interaction experiences to be understood more deeply, both biomechanically and psychologically, and to be taken into account during technical development and thus before mechatronic implementation. This major research instrumentation combines a highly dynamic, instrumented dual-belt treadmill, which can generate perturbations through moving along additional degrees of freedom, with a precise motion capture system, a system for the projection of virtual (locomotion) environments as well as a modular system for the emulation of prosthesis/exoskeleton components, which allows the flexible comparison of a wide variety of technical solutions before the actual implementation. This combination of devices, which is probably unique worldwide, is intended to equip FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg sustainably for interdisciplinary cutting-edge research in the field of motion assistance through wearable robotic systems, thus creating the basis for diverse (inter)national collaborations.