Biologically Inspired Control of Humanoid Robot Arms

Introduction.- Part I Background on Humanoid Robots and Human Motion.- Humanoid Robots and Control.- Human Motion.- Part II Robot Control: Implementation.- Basic Operational Space Controller.- Sliding-Mode Task Controller Modification.- Implementing "Discomfort" for Smooth Joint Limits.- Sliding-Mode Optimal Controller.- Adaptive Compliance Control.- Part III Human Motion Recording for Task Motion Modelling and Robot Arm Control.- Human Motion Recording and Analysis.- Neural Network Motion Learning by Observation for Task Modelling and Control.- Appendices: Kinematics - Introduction.- Inverse Kinematics for BERUL2.- Theoretical Summary of Adaptive Compliant Controller.

Dr. Adam ('Ad') Spiers is an Associate Research Scientist at the GRAB lab in Yale University (Connecticut, USA). The majority of this book represents research he carried out for his PhD (2007-2011) at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) and University of Bristol (UK) under the supervision of Dr. Guido Herrmann and Prof. Chris Melhuish. In addition to a PhD, he holds an MSc in Engineering and Information Sciences (2006) and BSc in Cybernetics and Control Engineering (2004), both from the University of Reading (UK). He currently conducts research into human movement, upper limb prosthetics, underactuated robot hands and shape-changing haptic navigation interfaces for pedestrian guidance. His other research work, outside that noted in this book, has included surgical robotics, tele-haptics, medical diagnostic simulators, robot gripper / sensor development, tactile displays, neural interfacing and enactive interfaces. He has also worked on remote handling robots at UK nuclear facilities and collaborated with several artists to create unique technology driven theater and art installations. He was an invited resident of the Pervasive Media Studio (Bristol, UK) from 2012-2014.
Dr Said G Khan is an Assistant Professor in Robotics and Control in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering Yanbu, Taibah University Al Madinah, Saudi Arabia. He has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Queen's School of Engineering, University of Bristol. Dr. S G Khan is a member of the Nonlinear Robotics Control Group (NRCG) at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. He has completed his PhD at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of the West of England (and University of Bristol) in 2012 in Robotics and Control, specializing in "safe human-robot interaction via adaptive compliance control". He did his M.Sc. Robotics with Distinction from the University Of Plymouth, UK in 2006. He received his B.Sc. in Mechanical