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www.engineeringnews.co.nz 13 In the field of wearable robotics, physical interfacing between the human body and a robot causes various engineering issues with mechanical design, control architecture construction, and actuation algorithm design. The allowed space and weight for electrical devices is extremely limited because a wearable robot needs to be put on like a suit. Additionally, the overall control sampling rate of the robot should be fast enough that it does not impede human motions and can properly react to external forces. Also, many questions remain regarding human augmentation and assistance control algorithms for wearable robots, even though many of the endeavors of robotic researchers have resulted in successful performances of wearable robots. Therefore, Hyundai mainly considered the following requirements for selecting a main controller for its wearable robots: • High-speed processing of data obtained from various types of sensors • Size and weight • Real-time data visualisation for developing control algorithms • Connectivity to other smart devices to provide more convenient functions System Configuration The real-time control and FPGA hardware environment ensure reliability and stability by providing I/O that is compatible with various robotic control devices. For instance, in the process of building Hyundai’s wearable robots, the overall control architecture drastically changed several times due to the replacement of sensors or changes in the control communication method. However, the unique onboard combination of the real-time controller and FPGA features provided by NI products empowered the management of these changes promptly, which helped reduce development period. In addition, adopting the compact sbRIO-9651 System on Module (SOM) device helped reduce the robot’s weight to less than 10kg while maximising battery efficiency through a low-power base system configuration. Expandable, compatible key reasons The number of sensors and actuators increases significantly to achieve more complex tasks in robotics, and the complexity of the control algorithms increases exponentially. Therefore, simultaneously processing all data from multiple sensors and sending instructions to multiple actuators becomes one of the most important challenges to address in robotics. LabVIEW supports concurrent visualisation for intuitive signal processing for installed sensors on robots and further control algorithm design in the experimental stages. Lastly, NI products are expandable and compatible, so it is possible to use smart devices as user interfaces (UIs) in the future. Wearable robotics for walking assistance Originally, the following types of wearable robots were built: • Hip modular exoskeleton - A modular robot that provides walking assistance to people with discomfort in the hip area. • Knee modular exoskeleton - A modular robot that provides walking assistance to people with discomfort in the knee area. • Life-caring exoskeleton - A modular robot that combines the hip and knee parts to provide walking assistance to the elderly or people with difficulties moving the lower half of their bodies. • Medical exoskeleton - A modular robot that combines the hip and knee parts to provide walking assistance to patients who do not have the ability to move the lower half of their bodies on their own. EN


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