Yuki Matsutani

Numerical analysis of feedforward position control for non-pulley musculoskeletal system: a case study of muscular arrangements of a two-link planar system with six muscles

Abstract In a musculoskeletal system like a tendon-driven robot, redundant actuation is necessary because muscles (or mechanical parts such as tendons) can transmit tension only unidirectionally. This redundancy yields internal force among muscles, which has a particular field of potential energy. Using internal force as a feedforward input, a musculoskeletal system can achieve feedforward position control with no sensory feedback. This paper studies the feedforward position control coming from the redundancy for a non-pulley musculoskeletal system. Targeting a planar two-link system with six muscles as a case study, the motion convergence depending on the muscular arrangement is examined quasi-statically. The results point out that the convergence is extremely sensitive to the muscular arrangement, and adding small offsets for the muscular connected points can remarkably improve the positioning performance.

Set-point control of a musculoskeletal arm by the complementary combination of a feedforward and feedback manner

This paper proposes a novel set-point control method of a musculoskeletal system by combining a feedforward and feedback manner to complement each drawback each other. In our previous work, a feedforward positioning method of the musculoskeletal arm model was proposed which does not need any realtime sensory information. Its performance, however, depends on a muscular arrangement and an attitude of the arm, and thereby a large initial muscular internal force is necessary to make a good performance. On the other hand, it is well-known that a visual servoing is effective and versatile for the set-point control. However, there is a considerable time-delay due to a computational burden to acquire useful information from an image and an insufficient sampling period to capture each image when using a video frame rate camera. Thus in this paper, the feedforward and feedback signal are linearly combined into one in order to mutually complement each drawback. The combined control signal is newly designed and then numerical simulation results are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed method.

Sensorless point-to-point control for a musculoskeletal tendon-driven manipulator: analysis of a two-DOF planar system with six tendons

Tendon-driven robot utilizes only tensile force (i.e. tension) for motion generation. Therefore, a redundant actuation is characteristically necessary, and then it yields the internal force among tendons. Given the internal force for balance at a desired posture, the musculoskeletal tendon-driven manipulator has the inherent possibility of point-to-point position control without any sensory feedback. However, the motion convergence is strongly governed by the arrangement of tendons.This study analyzes the mathematical conditions of convergence for this sensorless position control by use of a Lyapunov function. Subsequently, targeting the two-link musculoskeletal structure with six tendons, the sufficient conditions for the convergence at desired posture are further defined by employing an approximation of the tendon-length based on a Taylor expansion. Finally, the convergent conditions are verified through simulation and validated via experimental results. Graphical Abstract

Variable combination of feed-forward and feedback manners for set-point control of a musculoskeletal arm considering the maximum exertable muscular force

In this paper, our previously proposed set-point control method for a musculoskeletal system is improved to reduce required muscular forces and to avoid a saturation of muscular forces during movement. The previous method is robust against a considerable time-delay in sensory information, but it still requires large muscular forces to accomplish a desired position, and the maximum exertable muscular force has not yet been taken into consideration. To cope with these two issues, two variable parameters are newly introduced. One is for changing the combination ratio of feed-forward and feedback controllers to reduce necessary muscular forces. The other is for avoiding the saturation of muscular forces during movement The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated through several numerical simulation results.

Feed-forward positioning of musculoskeletal-like robotic systems with muscular viscosity: Determination of an adequate internal force

This paper proposes a new feed-forward positioning method for a musculoskeletal-like robotic system considering a muscle-like nonlinear viscosity, and a new determination method of the internal force using the reinforcement learning scheme. In our previous works, a feed-forward positioning method for the musculoskeletal-like robotic systems has been proposed. In the method, the position regulation of the system can be accomplished by inputting a desired internal force balancing at a desired position. It has been quite effective for the muscle-like driven mechanism because no sensor is necessary to regulate the position. However, this method often induces an overshoot phenomenon when performing a set-point control. In addition, there is another intrinsic problem that musculoskeletal-like redundant-driven mechanisms own the ill-posed problems that the internal force is unable to determine uniquely. In this paper, for the farmer problem, a muscle-like nonlinear viscosity is newly added to the controller to reduce such an overshoot phenomenon and then to expand the stable region of the manipulator. For the latter problem, a determination method of the internal force using a reinforcement learning scheme is newly proposed. In what follows, firstly a new feed-forward controller which considers the muscle-like viscosity is introduced, and shows its effectiveness through numerical simulations. Next, the determination method of the internal force using a reinforcement learning scheme is proposed and its effectiveness is also shown through numerical simulations.

Study of human motion generation based on redundancy of musculoskeletal structure: Analysis of potential generated by internal force for two-link system

The human body has a musculoskeletal system with the muscles which exist around the bones and joints. Taking notice of the structural characteristics that a human possesses inherently, this paper analyzes feedforward position control for the musculoskeletal system. The feedforward positioning does not need any sensory feedback by use of internal force balancing at a desired posture. Targeting a non-pulley musculoskeletal system with two links and six muscles, this paper clarifies mathematical conditions of the feedforward positioning to converge at a desired posture. In the analysis, muscular length is approximated by Taylor expansion. Based on quasi-statical approach, the convergent conditions are clarified. The verification of the conditions is conducted through simulation.

Complementary compound set-point control by combining muscular internal force feedforward control and sensory feedback control including a time delay

Abstract This paper proposes a new set-point control method for a musculoskeletal arm by combining muscular internal force feedforward control with feedback control including a large time delay. The proposed method accomplishes robust and rapid positioning with a relatively small muscular force. In the positioning by the muscular internal force feedforward controller, a large muscular force is required to achieve good performance. On the other hand, in the positioning by the feedback controller including the large time delay, the system can easily fall into an unstable state. A simple linear combination of these two controllers makes it possible to improve the control performance and to overcome the drawbacks of each controller in a complementary manner. First, a two-link six-muscle arm model is considered as a musculoskeletal system in this study. Second, the new set-point control method, which consists of the feedforward control signal and the feedback control signal including the time delay, is designed. Third, the stability of the proposed method is investigated using the Lyapunov–Razumikhin method. Finally, the results of numerical simulations and experiments are presented to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method.

Stiffness evaluation of a tendon-driven robot with variable joint stiffness mechanisms

This paper proposes a new tendon-driven robot with variable joint stiffness mechanisms. The tendon-driven robot is able to vary the stiffness of joints by sliding variable stiffness mechanisms over the link by wire tensions. As a reason for that structure and moment arms of the tendon-driven robot are changed depending on the position of the variable mechanism. Thus in this paper, the tendon-driven robot with variable stiffness mechanisms is designed, and the stiffness of the tendon-driven robot is evaluated by using a stiffness ellipsoid.

Geometrie conditions for feedforward positioning of musculoskeletal tendon-driven structure

The human body possesses a musculoskeletal structure in which muscles exist around the bones and joints. The musculoskeletal tendon-driven robot utilizes this structure. This robotic system uses sets of mechanical tendons, such as wire-cables and actuators instead of the vital muscles. The redundant actuation is necessary for the system when it does not actively use any external force nor a tensioner because the mechanical tendon can transmit only a tensile force. This structural characteristic enables feedforward motion-generation that does not need any sensory feedback. However, the convergent posture strongly depends on the tendon-arrangement. Targeting the tendon-driven manipulator, which has two links and six tendons, this paper expands the mathematical conditions for the convergence into the geometric conditions of tendon-arrangement. Based on the geometric conditions, a design method of the tendon-arrangement is discussed.

Sensibility to muscular arrangement of feedforward position control for non-pulley-musculoskeletal system

This paper studies the feedforward position control induced by the redundancy in a non-pulley-musculoskeletal system. Targeting a planar two-link musculoskeletal system with six muscles as a case study, the motion convergence depending on the muscular arrangement is examined. The results indicate that the motion convergence is extremely sensitive to the muscular arrangement and that adding small offsets for the points of muscle connection can remarkably improve the positioning performance.