Theme 1: Biomechanics and Dynamic Gait Analysis

Human biomechanics deals with the analysis and understanding of how a person
performs dynamic tasks such as walking and reaching for objects. Obviously, bipedal
locomotion or gait is a task which humans learn from an early age, around 12 months,
but it is a complex behaviour to implement on a humanoid robot. Recently, there has
been a focus on understanding the behaviour of gait in the elderly as 50% of A&E
admissions are due to trips and falls, and it has been estimated that this costs the NHS
approximately 2 billion each year. Elderly people are more prone to falls and the
consequences of these falls are more severe (loss of independence, mobility, quality
of life). Currently, the EU is targeting a major initiative based around healthy ageing
and falls in the elderly, and this theme will investigate several dynamic analysis and
control problems associated with biomechanical gait.

This project will be performed jointly with Dr Gustavo Medrano-Cerda from IIT
(Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy) and also receive advice from Prof Paul
Glendinning (Maths) and Prof Krikor Ozanyan (EEE, Sensing, Imaging and Signal
Processing).

1. Swing Phase Analysis of a Human Walking Gait (2 people)
The aim of this project is to extract gait data from a slow cost sensor, such as a Kinect
device, which can then be transformed and analysed to understand the joint torques,
feedback strategies and compliant components of a normal, planar gait during swing
phase. Such position data will need to be analysed (derivatives estimated and filtered)
and it will also involve the development of a ~7 link rigid body model to represent the
swing phase and hence estimate the joint torques. Different feedback control schemes
will be compared (PID, MPC, CTC, ) to understand how a subconscious gait is
produced and analyse the role of compliance.

2. Metastability of a Compass Gait (1 person)
Metastability is a concept which models the fact that some dynamic systems appear
stable in the short term but in fact possess a very slow, diverging mode which
eventually causes the system to lose stability. The aim of this project is to analyse
metastability in the context of a planar, compass gait walker and hence analyse how it
is affected by introducing feedback to stabilize the system. A key part of the project
will be to focus on the efficient calculation of metastability in a way that can be
generalized to larger systems.
Katie Byl & Russ Tedrake, Metastable Walking Machines, The Int. J. of Robotics
Research August 2009, 28(8), 1040-1064

3. Energy Efficiency of an Impulse (Toe-Off) with Compass Gait
Locomotion (1 person)
The aim of this project will be to compare the energy efficiency of a planar, compass
gait which has the option of generating an impulsive toe-off force at the start of the
swing phase. Such control actions are recognised as being important for maintaining
an energy efficient gait in humans, and indeed a humans gait is substantially altered
when their toe action is restricted (ski shoes etc.). It is expected that the energy
efficiency of a powered PD/state feedback controller for the compass gait will be
compared with the impulsive toe-off force and the robustness of the two schemes
compared.
Katie Byl & Russ Tedrake, Approximate optimal control of the compass gait on rough
terrain, IEEE Int Conf on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2008

4. Robust Control of a Hopper (1 person)
This project will the investigate how a control strategy can be developed for a hopper
(point mass attached to a rigid link via a spring), in particular analysing its robustness
to varying terrain (small amplitude/frequency) models. The spring-mass model
represents a simplified running gait where energy is stored and then released in an
energy efficient fashion, coupled with a free flight phase. For simplicity, only planar
hopper will be considered.
Albert Wu and Hartmut Geyer, The 3-D SpringMass Model Reveals a Time-Based
Deadbeat Control for Highly Robust Running and Steering in Uncertain
Environments IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 29(5), 114-124, Oct 2013

5. Accelerometer Placement for Gait Reconstruction (1 person)
Many sensors can be used to collect data about a persons gait. Joint position can be
derived from visual images and force sensors (shoe or carpet) can collect data about
impacts. This project will investigate how a small number of accelerometers can be
positioned on a subjects body so as to collect the maximum amount of information
which minimizes the error in reconstruction a normal walking gait. It is expected that
this process will involve measuring the gait sensitivity and hence either performing a
continuous or discrete optimization for sensor placement. It is expected much of the
work will be performed on a reduced order model (knees and hip) as well as
verifying the results with real data.
[1] N. Abbate, A. Basile, A. Brigante, C. Faulisi, Development of a MEMS based
wearable motion capture system, Human System Interactions (HSI), 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq7Dt59Soho.
[2] Jochen Tautges, Arno Zinke, Bjrn Krger et al. (2011) Motion reconstruction using
sparse accelerometer data, 1-12. In ACM Transactions on Graphics 30 (3).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I9EYu4ok8
[3] Karina Lebel,Patrick Boissy mail,Mathieu Hamel,Christian Duval (2013), Inertial
Measures of Motion for Clinical Biomechanics: Comparative Assessment of Accuracy under
Controlled Conditions - Effect of Velocity
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24260324
[4] http://www.dagstuhl.de/Materials/Files/08/08231/08231.WeberAndreas.Slides.pdf



6. Machine Learning for Gait Reconstruction (1 person)

Full body gait reconstruction using information from a small number of sensors is an
ill-posed problem. This project will investigate how machine learning techniques
which are based on querying gait databases can be used to reconstruct the missing
joint information. Real gait data will be collected from a small number of
accelerometers and if time allows, this may be benchmarked with actual (visual) data
collected.

[1] Motion Capture Database:
http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/resources/HDM05/
http://mocap.cs.cmu.edu/
[2] Jochen Tautges, Arno Zinke, Bjrn Krger et al. (2011) Motion reconstruction using
sparse accelerometer data, 1-12. In ACM Transactions on Graphics 30 (3).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2I9EYu4ok8
[3] Neighbourhood Search Algorithms/Fast similarity search:
ANN library: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mount/ANN/
Knnsearch: http://www.mathworks.co.uk/help/stats/knnsearch.html
FLANN or nanoFLANN: https://code.google.com/p/nanoflann/
[4] Fast Local and Global Similarity Searches in Large Motion Capture Databases:
http://cg.cs.uni-bonn.de/aigaion2root/attachments/FastSimilaritySearch.pdf

7. Energy Efficient Regularization of Gait (1 person)
Full body gait reconstruction using information from a small number of sensors is an
ill-posed problem. This project will investigate how expended energy can be used to
regularize the solution, in particular for a normal walking gait. Real gait data will be
collected from a small number of accelerometers and this will be used, together with
the regularization objective to estimate missing joint measurements. If time allows,
this may be benchmarked with actual (visual) data collected.
[1] Jochen Tautges, Arno Zinke, Bjrn Krger et al. (2011) Motion reconstruction
using sparse accelerometer data, 1-12. In ACM Transactions on Graphics 30
(3).


8. Validating Accelerometer & Pressure Measurements of Gait (1
person)
The ground reaction force is a key measure used to assess the stability of humanoid
robots, even though their trajectory is specified in terms of joint angles. In this
project, two sensors will be analysed and compared in order to determine their
consistency and usefulness in analysing gait (both personalized and average
characteristics). The first novel sensor, which has been developed by Prof Ozanyan at
Manchester, measures the pressure exerted by the foot on a carpet. This should
provide estimates of a persons centre of pressure during the gait. The other
accelerometer or vision sensors can estimate the link and joint position of a persons
skeleton. The project will assess the quality and consistency of these signals and
develop appropriate visualization tools to support their use.

[1] http://uk.reuters.com/video/2012/10/08/magic-carpet-a-hi-tech-safety-net-for-
el?videoId=238243515
[2] N. Abbate, A. Basile, A. Brigante, C. Faulisi, Development of a MEMS based
wearable motion capture system, Human System Interactions (HSI), 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq7Dt59Soho.
[2] Jochen Tautges, Arno Zinke, Bjrn Krger et al. (2011) Motion reconstruction using
sparse accelerometer data, 1-12. In ACM Transactions on Graphics 30 (3).



Theme 2: Control Problems in Humanoid and
Quadruped Robot Locomotion (6 people)
A large number of bipedal (humanoid) and quadruped robots have been developed,
although developing flexible and efficient locomotion (control) strategies is a
complex problem. Bipedal robots have been proposed to act as assistants or helpers
for the elderly, and as such they must operate (move and perform tasks) in
environments designed for humans. Similarly, quadruped robots have been proposed
to be used in rough terrains which are unsuitable for wheeled vehicles. A number of
advanced humanoid robots have been developed since Honda announced the ASIMO
including HRP, Nao, CoMAN and Petman/Atlas. Similarly, advanced, high
performing quadrupeds have been developed including Big Dog, HyQ, Last year,
DARPA announced the Grand Challenge in Humanoid Robots where different teams
develop humanoids which can perform a variety of rescue scenarios including driving,
tool use, climbing ladders etc.

The advances in legged locomotion have been made possible by a variety of
advances in mechatronics and control. These include the use of compliant joints to
minimize shocks, improve energy efficiency and be robust to errors in
sensors/models. Hydraulic actuators have been used in Big Dog and Petman/Atlas
and these have shown to provide superior power and response times compared to
electric actuators which are used in industrial robot manipulators. However, there are
many open control problems associated with the use of these legged robots and this
themed project will address some of these issues.

The projects will be run jointly with Dr Gustavo Medrano-Cerda from IIT (Italian
Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy) who have led the development of the biped
CoMAN and the quadruped HyQ.

1. Torque Ripple Compensation in Harmonic Drives based on Adaptive
Oscillators (1 person)
The aim of this project is to design adaptive oscillators (e.g. Hopf oscillators) to
compensate the effect of torque ripples caused by harmonic drives. Schemes based on
the Kalman filter have been investigated and the project would also involve
comparing the Kalman filter approach to an approach using adaptive oscillators. The
project involves aspects on modelling, modern control systems. Matlab/Simulink are
tools to be used throughout the project.

Petar Kormushev and Darwin G. Caldwell, Improving the Energy Efficiency of
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles by Learning to Model Disturbances, IEEE/RSJ Intl
Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2013), Tokyo, Japan, 2013.
H. D. Taghirad and P. R. Blanger, Torque ripple and misalignment torque
compensation for the built-in torque sensor of harmonic drive systems, IEEE Trans.
Instrum. Meas., vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 309315, 1998.

2. Feedback Linearization of Hydraulic Actuators and Positive Feedback
Compensation for Force/Torque Control in the 3 DOF Leg of HyQ (1 person)
The aim of this project is to use feedback linearization to compensate for valve-orifice
nonlinearity in hydraulic actuators and employ positive feedback to enhance the
performance of force/torque control loops using simple PI controllers. Initially the
project can focus on a 1 Dof system and later consider the 3 DOF case of HyQ (a
Hydraulic Quadruped built at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy). The
project should also consider investigating discrete time implementation issues and
sensor requirements, particularly sensor resolution. Besides robotics, the project is
also relevant to other areas where force/torque control is important, e.g. the
automotive industry, flight and earthquake simulators. Matlab/Simulink are tools to be
used throughout the project.

M. Jelali and A. Kroll, Hydraulic Servo-systems: Modelling, Identification and
Control, Advances in Industrial Control, Springer Verlag ,2003
D. McCloy and H.R.Martin, Control of Fluid Power: Analysis and Design, 2nd
edition, John Wiley, 1980

3. System Identification and a Test Environment for the 3 Dof Leg of HyQ (1
person)
This project will investigate how to develop an identification test environment for a 3
Dof leg of HyQ including instrumentation requirements. HyQ is a Hydraulic
Quadruped built at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy. At present the
dynamic models of HyQ are based on nominal design data and there are no model
standards set for dynamic tests to validate the completed system. It is expected that
the test/identification environment will be developed using simulation tools in
Matlab/Simulink/LabView and will focus on the legs. Dynamic identification using
experimental data can also be carried out if time permits. Matlab/Simulink are tools to
be used throughout the project.

T. Bohlin, Practical Grey-box Process Identification: Theory and Applications,
Advances in Industrial Control, Springer Verlag, London 2006.
M. Jelali and A. Kroll, Hydraulic Servo-systems: Modelling, Identification and
Control, Advances in Industrial Control, Springer Verlag ,2003
D. McCloy and H.R.Martin, Control of Fluid Power: Analysis and Design, 2nd
edition, John Wiley, 1980

4. Impedance Control for Systems with Joint Flexibility: Shaping Inertia,
Stiffness and Damping (1 person)
The aim of this project is to determine what limitations arise in impedance control
when the impedance loop parameters, inertia, stiffness and damping, vary within a
specified set of values chosen for a range of tasks. The impedance control problem is
usually formulated as an outer position control loop with a fixed structure and an
inner torque loop which has to be designed to meet closed loop stability requirements.
The project will initially focus on a simple 1 Dof system with an electric drive and
later consider a more complex 2 Dof system. The case of Cartesian impedance control
of can also be considered if time permits. Matlab/Simulink are tools to be used
throughout the project.

5. Model Predictive Control for the Humanoid CoMan (1 person)
The aim of this project is to design a robust control system for CoMan using model
predictive control. CoMan is a small humanoid robot with flexible joints built at the
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy. The controller design will initially be
based on a linearized model for one or two joints of the upper body of the robot
(arms). If time permits this can later be extended to the legs. The project also involves
investigation on the practical issues for implementation of a model predictive
controller for CoMan. Matlab/Simulink are tools to be used throughout the project.

6. Gravity Compensation and Lyapunov Stablitiy for Mechanical System with
Flexible Joints (1 person)
The aim of this project is to investigate closed loop stability for robots with flexible
joints when a control system incorporates gravity compensation using measured
angles. At present global stability results are only available for gravity compensation
using the desired angles or gravity biased motor position feedback. The project
requires a good understanding of Lyapunov theory and at first it will focus on the
problem of local stability.