Human-robot gait coordination and interaction

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Robotic automation plays an important role in our lives, especially in behind-the-scenes activities like improving productivity and workplace safety in warehouses and factories. However, they have been slow to provide similar benefits in personal or domestic applications. One limiting factor is the difficulty in building machines that can navigate the same environments humans inhabit. Bipedal walking offers remarkable potential for implementing such personal robot companions. However, current walking robots are too expensive or dangerous to be deployed for widespread use. This limits their accessibility to the general public and to researchers interested in improving those systems. Due to the lack of appropriate technology, few have examined even the most basic interactions in human-robot paired walking. To finally enable personal, ambulatory robot companions that interact seamlessly with humans, my innovative research program will address both problems of coordination and accessibility. My proposed research focuses on investigating the mechanical and energetic consequences of paired side-by-side walking with humans and robots. My short-term goals are to build dynamic, walking robots with approachable, two-dimensional manufacturing techniques and to exploit these robots to gain previously unattainable insights into paired human-human and human-robot walking. HQPs will be trained in human subject testing procedures, including movement measurement and analysis, and mechatronics system design. Specific research investigations include the mechanisms governing the selection of preferred gait patterns during paired walking by perturbing robot step frequency and leg length, comparing human gait behavior when walking with a legged system versus a wheeled system, and determining if robots can influence humans to walk with normal or abnormal gaits. This program is just the beginning of a long effort to understand and leverage human-robot gait interaction, which will benefit a broad range of fields. In robotics, program outcomes will demonstrate cost-effective design strategies to help lower the barrier to entry for researchers to participate in studying legged locomotion. Biomechanists will develop a deeper understanding of the determinants of human behavior during paired walking, insights which could aid gait rehabilitation. For the general public, a ubiquitous robot-based workforce can create socio-economic benefits by liberating humans from dangerous, critical, or mundane tasks. For Canada, this could include important economic activities such as logging and mining. As the country's population continues to age rapidly, these ambulatory robot companions could be employed to assist the elderly, by providing affordable, 24-hour care. Following my research program, the opportunities and benefits to society and science that are possible through bipedal walking robot companions, that have only before been envisioned as fiction, will move closer to reality.