[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), with and without visual input, on weight distribution following exercise-induced fatigue in the dorsiflexor and plantar flexor muscles of the ankle. [Subjects and Methods] This study had a cross-sectional design. Nineteen healthy adults (10 males, 9 females; mean age 21±0.8 year...

Towards achieving dynamic humanoid robots that can function effectively in our unstructured environments, incorporation of some form of mechanical compliance and whole-body torque control present a very promising approach. However, one of the primary limitations affecting this approach is that of accurate, and effective state information, in particular, that of estimation of external forces tha...

This paper addresses the design of a six legged robot for planetary exploration. The robot is specifically designed for uneven terrains and is biologically inspired on different levels: mechanically as well as in control. A novel structure is developed basing on a (careful) emulation of the cockroach, whose extraordinary agility and speed are principally due to its self-stabilizing posture and ...

This paper addresses modeling and global motion planning issues for an autonomous wheeled mobile robot moving on an uneven three-dimensional (3-D) terrain. We focus particularly on the issue of dealing with dynamic and wheel/ground interaction constraints. A key feature of our approach is that it incorporates appropriate physical models to cope with the task dynamics in the motion planning para...

One challenge of legged locomotion on uneven terrains is to deal with both the discrete problem selecting a contact surface for each footstep and continuous placing selected surface. Consequently, planning can be addressed Mixed Integer Program (MIP), an elegant but computationally-demanding method, which make it unsuitable online planning. We reformulate MIP into cardinality problem, then appr...

We study the flow of water on fat terrains, that is, triangulated terrains where the minimum angle of any triangle is bounded from below by a positive constant. We show that the worstcase complexity of any path of steepest descent on a fat terrain of n triangles is Θ(n), and that the worst-case complexity of the river network on such terrains is Θ(n). This improves the corresponding bounds for ...

Given a terrain defined as a piecewise-linear function with n triangles, and m point sites on it, we would like to identify the location on the terrain that minimizes the maximum distance to the sites. The distance is measured as the length of the Euclidean shortest path along the terrain. To simplify the problem somewhat, we extend the terrain to (the surface of) a polyhedron. To compute the o...

In this paper, an online adaptation algorithm for bipedal walking on uneven surfaces with height uncertainty is proposed. In order to generate walking patterns on flat terrains, the trajectories in the task space are planned to satisfy the dynamic balance and slippage avoidance constraints, and also to guarantee smooth landing of the swing foot. To ensure smooth landing of the swing foot on sur...

Tipover issue is an important problem in autonomous mobile manipulators. This issue is becoming more important in new generation of mobile robots where their size and weight are reduced, and they are designed to work on uneven terrains with higher speeds. Estimating the distance from the tipover stability margin would enhance the capability of the mobile manipulators in correcting their motion....

Ankle movements in the frontal plane are less prominent though not less relevant than movements in the plantar or dorsal flexion direction. Walking on uneven terrains and standing on narrow stances are examples of circumstances likely imposing marked demands on the ankle medio-lateral stabilization. Following our previous evidence associating lateral bodily sways in quiet standing to activation...