Development of motion instruction system with interactive robot suit HAL

Abstract

This paper proposes motion instruction system with the interactive robot suit HAL (hybrid assistive limb) for supporting physically challenged persons, enhancing and expanding the human ability. HAL consists of external frames, actuators, various sensors, and a control PC with ethernet device and has not only been developed to assist the motion of wearer's body, but also can be applied to motion instruction between the doctor and the patient in rehabilitation by building the unilateral/bilateral master-slave system with two HALs. In order to realize the motion instruction system, it is required to transfer the information of motion to each other. We performed fundamental experiments for unilateral/bilateral motion instruction between HALs to verify whether the system satisfies the required basic specification, and could confirm the effectiveness of the suggested system.