An Online Impedance Adaptation Controller for Decoding Skill Intelligence

Variable Impedance control allows robots and humans to safely and efficiently interact with unknown external environments. This tutorial introduces online impedance adaptation control (OIAC) for variable compliant joint motions in a range of control tasks: rapid (<1s) movement control (i.e., whipping to hit), arm and finger impedance quantification, multifunctional exoskeleton control, and robot-inspired human arm control hypothesis. The OIAC has been introduced as a feedback control, which can be integrated into a feedforward control, e.g., learned by data-driven methods. This integration facilitates the understanding of human and robot arm control, closing a research loop between biomechanics and robotics. It shows not only a research way from biomechanics to robotics, but also another reserved one. This tutorial aims at presenting research examples and Python codes for advancing the understanding of variable impedance adaptation in human and robot motor control. It contributes to the state-of-the-art by providing an online impedance adaptation controller for wearable robots (i.e., exoskeletons) which can be used in robotic and biomechanical applications.