02 Fakultät Bau- und Umweltingenieurwissenschaften

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/3

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Optimality principles in human point-to-manifold reaching accounting for muscle dynamics
    (2020) Wochner, Isabell; Driess, Danny; Zimmermann, Heiko; Häufle, Daniel F. B.; Toussaint, Marc; Schmitt, Syn
    Human arm movements are highly stereotypical under a large variety of experimental conditions. This is striking due to the high redundancy of the human musculoskeletal system, which in principle allows many possible trajectories toward a goal. Many researchers hypothesize that through evolution, learning, and adaption, the human system has developed optimal control strategies to select between these possibilities. Various optimality principles were proposed in the literature that reproduce human-like trajectories in certain conditions. However, these studies often focus on a single cost function and use simple torque-driven models of motion generation, which are not consistent with human muscle-actuated motion. The underlying structure of our human system, with the use of muscle dynamics in interaction with the control principles, might have a significant influence on what optimality principles best model human motion. To investigate this hypothesis, we consider a point-to-manifold reaching task that leaves the target underdetermined. Given hypothesized motion objectives, the control input is generated using Bayesian optimization, which is a machine learning based method that trades-off exploitation and exploration. Using numerical simulations with Hill-type muscles, we show that a combination of optimality principles best predicts human point-to-manifold reaching when accounting for the muscle dynamics.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Slack-based tunable damping leads to a trade-off between robustness and efficiency in legged locomotion
    (2023) Mo, An; Izzi, Fabio; Gönen, Emre Cemal; Häufle, Daniel F. B.; Badri-Spröwitz, Alexander
    Animals run robustly in diverse terrain. This locomotion robustness is puzzling because axon conduction velocity is limited to a few tens of meters per second. If reflex loops deliver sensory information with significant delays, one would expect a destabilizing effect on sensorimotor control. Hence, an alternative explanation describes a hierarchical structure of low-level adaptive mechanics and high-level sensorimotor control to help mitigate the effects of transmission delays. Motivated by the concept of an adaptive mechanism triggering an immediate response, we developed a tunable physical damper system. Our mechanism combines a tendon with adjustable slackness connected to a physical damper. The slack damper allows adjustment of damping force, onset timing, effective stroke, and energy dissipation. We characterize the slack damper mechanism mounted to a legged robot controlled in open-loop mode. The robot hops vertically and planarly over varying terrains and perturbations. During forward hopping, slack-based damping improves faster perturbation recovery (up to 170%) at higher energetic cost (27%). The tunable slack mechanism auto-engages the damper during perturbations, leading to a perturbation-trigger damping, improving robustness at a minimum energetic cost. With the results from the slack damper mechanism, we propose a new functional interpretation of animals’ redundant muscle tendons as tunable dampers.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Four considerations on interdisciplinary learning at the boundaries of human and engineering sciences
    (2022) Beckerle, Philipp; Hao, Chenxu; Häufle, Daniel F. B.; Russwinkel, Nele