Dong, H., Luo, Z., and Nagano, A.

Paper:
Adaptive Attitude Control of Redundant Time-Varying Complex
Model of Human Body in The Nursing Activity
Haiwei Dong, Zhiwei Luo, and Akinori Nagano
Department of Computational Science, Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University
1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan
E-mail: haiwei@stu.kobe-u.ac.jp
[Received December 14, 2009; accepted April 13, 2010]
With the development of human society, there are
more and more elderly people need to be taken care of.
However, there is not enough labor force to take the
nursing jobs. Nowadays robots play more and more
important roles in our daily life, especially in nursing
activities. In this paper, we illustrate a new attitude
control approach to lift human regardless of the indi-
vidual differences, such as height, weight, and so on.
In detail, considering our daily experience that only
very fewjoints are critical for accomplishing the lifting
up task, we treats the human body as a redundant sys-
tem. We use robust adaptive control to eliminate the
effects from the uninterested joints and identify the
human parameters in real time. In addition, the con-
vergence analysis, including tracking time and track
error, is also given. The approach is simulated by lift-
ing a human skeleton with two robot arms, which ver-
ies the efciency and effectiveness of our strategy.
Keywords: human body, model reduction, adaptive atti-
tude control, human parameters identication
1. Introduction
As more and more countries step into the aging soci-
ety, much attention is drawn to the aging of population
than ever before. The fact is that increasing number of
elderly people need to be looked after; however, there is
not enough labor force to take the nursing jobs. How to
deal with the aging problem has drawn attention of all
the countries in the world. Apart from many social so-
lutions, as the advanced robotics technology is becoming
mature, we believe that the mentioned aging problem can
be partially solved by using robots in the nursing activi-
ties, which inspires our research [1].
Specically, this paper focuses on how to carry up the
human body to a desired position and posture, which can
be utilized in the nursing activities in hospitals. However,
few efforts have been made in the literatures to change
the attitude of human body [2, 3]. From a theoretical
viewpoint, the most relevant approach is whole arms co-
operation control. However, many preceding researches
consider simple objects with small Degrees of Freedom
(DOF) whereas the human body is much more complex
with considerable DOF [46]. From a practical stand-
point, the most successful work on lifting human is the de-
velopment of a robot named RI-MAN which was selected
as one of the best inventions by the TIME Magazine in
2006 [79]. RI-MAN has many perceptive functions such
as sight, smell, hearing, touch, etc. Our research is based
on some of the dynamics simulations of RI-MAN.
It has been thought that the human body has about 206
bones and numerous joints connecting adjacent bones.
Based on the physiological structure of human joints, the
joints can be mainly divided into ve types as hinge (1-
DOF), pivot (1 DOF), saddle (2 DOF), gliding (2 DOF),
ball socket (3 DOF). While in dynamic equations, each
DOF is expressed as one differential equation. Hence, it is
predicted that the overall set of equations of human body
dynamics is very complex to handle. Hence, the difculty
arises to compute such a big dynamic model.
Actually, the human body can be considered as a free-
oating multi-link rigid object with passive moments.
The objective is to change the attitude of the mentioned
object by external forces. Hence, two difculties come
out: the rst one is about free-oating multi-link rigid
object. The previous studies on free-oating object are
mainly in controlling spacecraft. In the literatures, the
spacecrafts were accurately modeled. Based on the pre-
cise models, various methods, e.g., generalized Jacobian
methods, were proposed to complete the attitude control
task [10, 11]. However, in our case, the model of human
body cannot be modeled accurately. That is not only be-
cause there are some human parameters which can not be
measured, but also because human bodies have individ-
ual differences. The second one is about external forces.
As the human body is such a complex model with very
high dimension, application of external forces on the hu-
man body is also very complicated. The calculation needs
considerable time and real-time performance is impossi-
ble. In addition, the process of lifting human must be ab-
solutely safe. If we cannot make sure that the computation
is done in real-time, the safety cannot be guaranteed.
In consideration of the two difculties above, the ba-
sic idea for solution comes from our daily experience.
When human lift a person we do not care about the an-
gle of ankle, the position of hands and so on. What we
do have to care about are the position of the head, the ver-
418 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010
Adaptive Attitude Control of Time-Varying Model of Human Body
tical deection of upper limb and the angle of hip. Here
we call them interested states. From the viewpoint of
system theorem, we treat the human body as a large re-
dundant system whose dimension is reduced by diverting
the effects of other uninterested joints to the ones of
interested joints. The newly constructed reduced human
model has very few DOF while having unmodeled uncer-
tainty, unfortunately. In order to eliminate the unmod-
eled uncertainty, human attitude controller is designed.
Furthermore, the human parameter estimator is also de-
signed.Thus, the whole attitude control approach for lift-
ing up human body is capable to overcome the individual
differences, such as height, weight, and so on.
This paper is organized as follows. The second sec-
tion models the lifting problem and reduces the human
model. The third section illustrates the detailed derivation
of the controller and the estimator. The fourth section
analyzes the convergence of the proposed approach, in-
cluding tracking error and tracking time. The fth section
takes a normal human body for example in simulation to
test the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The sixth
section concludes the whole paper.
2. Adaptive Attitude Control of Human Body
2.1. Human Model Simplication
If we consider human body as a rigid multi-link object,
each bone of the human body corresponds to a link and
each joint of human body corresponds to a human joint
connecting adjacent links. Moreover, the joints of human
body has passive torques corresponding to the constric-
tion forces and moments developed by ligaments, joint
capsules and other soft tissues. Hence, we write the dy-
namics of human body model in the form
H(q) q+C(q, q) q+G(q) =
pass
, . . . . . (1)
where q
n1
is generalized states of human body, which
include the position of head and the angles of all the
joints. H(q)
nn
is inertia matrix. It is a symmetric and
positive semi-denite matrix, which contains informa-
tion with regard to the instantaneous mass distribution
of the human body. C(q, q)
nn
is centripetal and cori-
olis torques. The terms of C(q, q) contain products of
angular speeds. When the degrees of freedom are rota-
tional, the terms of C(q, q) represent the moments of cen-
trifugal forces. G(q)
n1
is gravitational torques. Because
G(q) changes as the posture conguration of the human
body model, the terms of it are functions of the general-
ized states.
pass n1
is passive joint torques. It contains
the torques and moments arising from muscular activa-
tions and passive elastic structures surrounding the human
joints.
rob n1
is the torques exerted by the robot arms
which is controllable.
The task assigned to robot is to lift up the human body,
and control the position and posture of the body to the
desired states. In this process, the human body is exerted
by external forces. Hence, the dynamics of human model
Fig. 1. RI-MAN lifts up human skeleton. The robot RI-
MAN was designed for taking care of elderly in the nursing
activity. Hence, he has many sensors for perception, includ-
ing sight, smell, hearing, and touch.
can be modied into the following form
H(q) q+C(q, q) q+G(q) =
pass
+
rob
, . . . (2)
where
rob n1
is the torques exerted by the robot arms,
which is controllable.
Actually, the robot considered in this paper is RI-MAN
which has two manipulation arms (Fig. 1). In this case,
the location of force application is the back and the knee
of human body, which is shown as F
1
and F
2
. The forces
F
1
and F
2
have relation with
rob
as

rob
= J
T
1
F
1
+J
T
2
F
2
, . . . . . . . . . . . (3)
where J
1
and J
2
are Jacobian matrix of the human model.
After introducing the external forces in the human dy-
namics, the case we have to deal with becomes attitude
control of a free-oating multi-link rigid object. The ba-
sic idea of our approach is to reduce the human model into
a small one with less DOF, which includes the following
three steps:
(a) Choose interested states. These states include the
fundamental performance indexes of the lifting task. In
other words, based on these states, we can easily check
whether the task is completed or not. Let us dene
q
1
= [q
1
, . . . , q
m
]
T
m1
. . . . . . . . . . (4)
as the interested states and
q
2
= [q
m+1
, . . . , q
n
]
T
(nm)1
. . . . . . . . (5)
as the uninterested states consisting of the other states.
We can easily obtain that q = [ q
1
q
2
]
T
.
(b) Arrange the dynamic equation set. Based on the divi-
sion of interested states in (a), we change the positions
of elements of H, C, G,
pass
and
rob
extract the dynam-
ics of the interested states. Then we divide the dynamic
equation set into two parts where H, C, G,
pass
and
rob
are written into the formof block matrix (or block vector).
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010 419
Dong, H., Luo, Z., and Nagano, A.
The expanded form of new dynamics equation set is
_

H
11

H
12

H
21

H
22
__

q
1

q
2
_
+
_

C
11

C
12

C
21

C
22
__

q
1

q
2
_
+
_

G
1

G
2
_
=
_

pass,1

pass,2
_
+
_

rob,1

rob,2
_
, . . (6)
where the dimensions of sub block matrices of

H
11
,

H
12
,

H
21
,

H
22
are mm, m(nm), (nm) m, (nm)
(nm), respectively. And the dimensions of sub block
matrices of

C
11
,

C
12
,

C
21
,

C
22
are mm, m(nm),
(nm) m, (nm) (nm), respectively. The dimen-
sions of vectors

G
1
,
pass,1
,
rob,1
are m 1, and

G
2
,

pass,2
,
rob,2
are (nm) 1.
(c) Construct the reduced human dynamics. First of all,
we dene the generalized states of the reduced human
model as
q
s
= q
1
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (7)
Extracting the parts of the human dynamics which we are
interested in, we get
_

H
11

H
12

_

q
1

q
2
_
+
_

C
11

C
12

_

q
1

q
2
_
+

G
1
=
pass,1
+
rob,1
. . . . (8)
Considering that the dynamic model is time-varying, after
arranging Eq. (8), we obtain

H
11
(t)

q
1
+

C
11
(t)

q
1
+
_

G
1
(t) +

H
12
(t)

q
2
+

C
12
(t)

q
2

pass,1
(t)
_
=
rob,1
(t). . . . . . . . . . . . (9)
By dening the inertia matrix, centripetal matrix, gravi-
tational matrix and torque vector of the reduced human
model as
H
s
(t) =

H
11
(t)
C
s
(t) =

C
11
(t)
G
s
(t) =

G
1
(t) +

H
12
(t)

q
2
+

C
12
(t)

q
2

pass,1
(t)

s
(t) =
rob,1
(t)
(10)
we obtain the general mechanical form of the reduced hu-
man model
H
s
(t) q
s
+C
s
(t) q
s
+G
s
(t) =
s
(t) . . . . . (11)
where the subscript s denotes the small system. Actu-
ally, our basic idea is to consider the inuences from the
uninterested human joints (in this case from state q
2
) as
perturbations and then change the attitude of human adap-
tively by estimating the human parameters of H
s
, C
s
and
G
s
in real time. The detailed estimation meanings are
Estimating H
s
and C
s
make the system adap-
tively adjusts itself to various people with different
weights;
Estimating G
s
eliminate the perturbations from the
uninterested joints.
Considering the basic idea above, the approach to be pro-
posed in this paper should be able to identify and control
the dynamics of the reduced human model at the same
time. Assuming that the human model is totally unknown
in advance, for the safety in the nursing activity, the iden-
tication process needs to be performed in real-time. On
the other hand, the weights and heights etc. of the human
bodies are different between individuals. Hence, the strat-
egy also has to be able to tolerate these individual differ-
ences.
2.2. Human Attitude Control and Parameter Iden-
tication
First of all, we assume that we do not have any pri-
ori knowledge before lifting human, i.e., the initial value
of H
s
, C
s
, G
s
are set as zero matrices (or zero vectors).
The benet of such assumption is that the proposed trajec-
tory is much more robust and can be adaptive to various
people with different heights and weights. Whereas, the
shortcoming is also obvious, i.e., generating unmodeled
dynamics. To overcome the above disadvantage, we use
robust controller to change the human attitude. Moreover,
online human parameter identication is also done so as
to estimate the human body in real time.
For the convenience of mathematical derivation, we de-
ne the actual human parameter vector
P =
_
P
T
H
P
T
C
P
T
G

T
, . . . . . . . . . . (12)
where
P
H
= [H
s,11
H
s,12
. . . H
s,1n
. . . H
s,n1
H
s,n2
H
s,nn
]
T
P
C
= [C
s,11
C
s,12
. . . C
s,1n
. . . C
s,n1
C
s,n2
C
s,nn
]
T
P
G
= [G
s,1
G
s,2
. . . G
s,n
]
T
. (13)
and estimated human parameter vector as

P =
_

P
T
H

P
T
C

P
T
G

T
, . . . . . . . . . . (14)
where

P
H
=
_

H
s,11

H
s,12
. . .

H
s,1n
. . .

H
s,n1

H
s,n2

H
s,nn

P
C
=
_

C
s,11

C
s,12
. . .

C
s,1n
. . .

C
s,n1

C
s,n2

C
s,nn

P
G
=
_

G
s,1

G
s,2
. . .

G
s,n

T
(15)
then the estimation error matrix can be dened as

P =

PP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . (16)
In fact, not any combination of H, C and G corresponds to
a physical system. Therefore, the rst step is to prove that
the reduced human model represents a physical system. It
is easy to prove that by verifying that

H
s
2C
s
is a skew-
symmetric matrix, i.e., the reduced human model satises
conservation of energy (the detailed derivation is in the
proof of Theorem 1).
We proposed a theorem for changing the interested
states of the large complex human body as in Theorem1.
Theorem 1 is composed of a human attitude control law
and a human parameter update law. In fact, the two pro-
cesses of control and identication run at the same time.
In the proof of Theorem 1, the global stability is shown
by proving that the derivative of Lyapunov function can-
didate is less than zero.
420 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010
Adaptive Attitude Control of Time-Varying Model of Human Body
Theorem 1
Consider a time-varying system
H
s
(t) q
s
+C
s
(t) q
s
+G
s
(t) =
s
(t) . . . . . (17)
without any pre-knowledge about H
s
, C
s
and G
s
. The vec-
tor q
s,d
means the desired states. Dene a sliding term s
as
s =

q
s
+ q
s
= (q
s
q
s,d
)

+(q
s
q
s,d
) . . (18)
where is a positive diagonal matrix. From the concep-
tual view of velocity, we dene the reference velocity q
s,r
and reference acceleration q
s,r
as
q
s,r
= q
s
s
q
s,r
= q
s
s
. . . . . . . . . . . . . (19)
If we choose the human attitude control law

s
=

H
s
(t) q
s,r
+

C
s
(t) q
s,r
+

G
s
(t) k sgn(s) . (20)
and human parameter update law

P=
1
_
s
1
q
T
s,r
. . . s
n
q
T
s,r
s
1
q
T
s,r
. . . s
n
q
T
s,r
s
1
. . . s
n

(21)
under the assumption of
_
_
k s
T
sgn(s)
_
_
>
_
_
P
T

P
_
_
. . . . . . . . (22)
where k and are positive diagonal matrices, sgn() is a
signal function, then the whole system tracks the desired
trajectory and the parameter matrices H
s
, C
s
and G
s
con-
verge to actual values globally.
Proof:
Dene a Lyapunov function candidate
V(t) =
1
2
s
T
H
s
s +
1
4

P
T
(2+I)

P . . . . . (23)
where is a positive diagonal matrix. The rst part of
V(t) can be written as
_
1
2
s
T
H
s
s
_

= s
T
(H
s
q
s
H
s
q
s,r
) +
1
2
s
T

H
s
s. (24)
From Eq. (17), H
s
q
s
=
s
C
s
q
s
G
s
, then
_
1
2
s
T
H
s
s
_

= s
T
(
s
C
s
(s + q
s,r
) G
s
H
s
q
s,r
) +
1
2
s
T

H
s
s
= s
T
(
s
H
s
q
s,r
C
s
q
s,r
G
s
) +
1
2
s
T
(

H
s
2C
s
)s
(25)
According to the previous research on mechanical system,
the system in the form of Eq. (2) satises
q
T
_

H 2C
_
q = 0 . . . . . . . . . . . (26)
i.e.,

H 2C is a skew-symmetric matrix. Hence, the fol-
lowing relation satises

H
i j
2C
i j
=
_
0 if i = j

_

H
ji
2C
ji
_
otherwise
. (27)
Without loss of generality, we choose q
1
as the new state
vector which we are interested in (Eq. (4)) and follow
the same system reduction procedures in Eqs. (4)-(11).
According to the relation in Eq. (27), the reduced system
satises

H
11(iu,iv)
2

C
11(iu,iv)
=
_
0 if iu = iv

H
11(iv,iu)
2

C
11(iv,iu)
_
otherwise
(28)
where

H
11
and

C
11
are dened in Eq. (6). Hence,

H
11

2

C
11
is a skew-symmetric matrix. Based on the denitions
of H
s
and C
s
in Eq. (10),

H
s
2C
s
is a skew-symmetric
matrix, hence
_
1
2
s
T
H
s
s
_

= s
T
(
s
H
s
q
s,r
C
s
q
s,r
G
s
) . (29)
Therefore,

V(t) can be simplied as

V(t) =
_
1
2
s
T
H
s
s
_
+
_
1
2

P
T

P
_
= s
T
(
s
H
s
q
s,r
C
s
q
s,r
G
s
) +(

P

P)
T

P (30)
Applying the human attitude control law Eq. (20)

s
=

H
s
(t) q
s,r
+

C
s
(t) q
s,r
+

G
s
(t) ksgn(s)
=
_

_
q
T
s,r
0 0 q
T
s,r
0 0 1 0 0
0 q
T
s,r
0 0 q
T
s,r
0 0 1 0
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
0 0 q
T
s,r
0 0 q
T
s,r
0 0 1
_

_
m2m
2

_
_

P
H

P
C

P
G
_
_
2m
2
1
k
_

_
sgn(s
1
)
sgn(s
2
)
.
.
.
sgn(s
m
)
_

_
m1
. . . . (31)
into

V(t), which leads to

V(t) = s
T
_

H
s
(t) q
s,r
+

C
s
(t) q
s,r
+

G
s
(t) H
s
(t) q
s,r
C
s
(t) q
s,r
G
s
(t)) k s
T
sgn(s) +

P
T
(

P

P)
= s
T
_

H
s
(t) q
s,r
+

C
s
(t) q
s,r
+

G
s
(t)
_
k s
T
sgn(s) +

P
T
(

P

P)
= [s
1
q
T
s,r
. . . s
n
q
T
s,r
]

P
H
+[s
1
q
T
s,r
. . . s
n
q
T
s,r
]

P
C
+[s
1
. . . s
n
]

P
G
s
T
sgn(s) +

P
T
(

P

P) (32)
where
q
s,r
=
_
q
s
r,1
q
s
r,2
. . . q
s
r,m
_
T
m1
q
s,r
=
_
q
s
r,1
q
s
r,2
. . . q
s
r,m
_
T
m1
We obtain

V(t) =

P
T
12m
2

_
s
1
q
T
s,r
. . . s
n
q
T
s,r
s
1
q
T
s,r
. . . s
n
q
T
s,r
s
1
. . . s
n

T
2m
2
1
k s
T
sgn(s) +

P
T
(

P

P). . . . . . (33)
Taking the human parameter update law of Eq. (21),
nally we obtain

V(t) =

P
T

Pk s
T
sgn(s). . . . . . . (34)
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010 421
Dong, H., Luo, Z., and Nagano, A.
Fig. 2. Scheme of the proposed attitude control. The input signals are the desired trajectories of the interested states of the human
model. The output is the actual motions of the human model. The proposed approach both controls the position and posture of the
human model and identies the human parameters online at the same time.
According to the assumption of Eq. (22),

V(t) < 0.
Hence, the tracking error and parameter estimation error
converge to zero asymptotically.
It is noted that the signals required in Eqs. (20) and (21)
are s, q
s,r
, q
s,r
. According to the denitions of s, q
s,r
, q
s,r
in Eqs. (18) and (19) , the basic signals required are q
s
,
q
s
, q
s
. Actually, the interested states q
s
, q
s
represent
the attitude position and acceleration of the human body.
Hence, they are obvious by binocular vision technology.
However, q
s
is hard to measure. To avoid the accelera-
tion term, we use ltering technology. Specically, let
w(t) be the impulse response of a stable, proper lter. For
example, for the rst-order lter /(p +) where > 0,
p =d/dt, the impulse response is e
t
. Then using partial
integration, q
s
can be integrated as
_
t
0
w(t r) q
r
dr = w(t r) q
s
|
t
0

_
t
0
dw
dr
q
s
dr
= w(0) q
s
w(t) q
s
(0)

_
t
0
[w(t r) q
s
w(t r) q
s
] dr (35)
which means q
s
= f ( q
s
, w), i.e., the acceleration signal
can be obtained from velocity signal.
To illustrate the strategy more clearly, the scheme il-
lustration is shown in Fig. 2. The input of the proposed
approach is the desired attitude of human body and the
output is the actual attitude. There are four blocks in the
scheme gure as signal transform unit, attitude controller,
model parameter estimator and human body model. De-
tailed explanations are as follows.
Signal transform unit. This unit has two input sig-
nals, including desired attitude and actual attitude.
Actually, we can get many kinds of error signals,
such as position error signal, angular velocity er-
ror signal and angular acceleration signal and so on.
Meanwhile, the combination of the above error sig-
nals can also be obtained. Specically, in the pro-
posed approach, we create the sliding signal s, ve-
locity reference error signal q
s,r
and acceleration ref-
erence error signal q
s,r
.
Attitude controller. The controller is a robust con-
troller which can tolerate the uncertainty of reduced
human model. In fact, the controller has its own es-
timated human model in the form of

H(q) q+

C(q, q) q+

G(q) =
pass
+
rob
. (36)
Each time, the controller gives orders to robot arms
to lift human body up according to its own estimated
human model.
Model parameter estimator. Although there is an in-
ternal estimated human model in the controller, the
uncertainty of human model estimation has a strong
impact on the control performance. In other words,
if we can get a more accurate approximation model
of human body, the performance is better. Based on
the above consideration, model parameter estimator
uses system identication technology to rene the
estimated human model. In the proposed approach,
the calculation of the derivative of

P revises the esti-
mated human model.
Human body model. The control orders are trans-
ferred to control the manipulators of the robot for
exerting external forces.
3. Convergence Analysis
First of all, we assume that the position and velocity
cannot jump, so that any desired trajectory feasible from
time t = 0 necessarily starts with the same position and
velocity as those of plant. Let q
s
= q
s
q
s,d
be the track-
ing error in the variable q
s
, i.e.,
q
s
=
_
q
s
q
s,d
q
s
q
s,d
_
. . . . . . . . . . . (37)
Furthermore, dene a time-varying surface in the state-
space R
n
by the scalar equation s(q
s
; t) = 0, where
s =

q
s
+ q
s
. . . . . . . . . . . . . (38)
422 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010
Adaptive Attitude Control of Time-Varying Model of Human Body
Given initial assumption q
s,d
(0) = q
s
(0), the problem of
tracking q
s
q
s,d
is equivalent to that of remaining q
s
on
the surface S(t) for all t >0; indeed s 0 represents a lin-
ear differential equation whose unique solution is q
s
0,
given initial condition q
s,d
(0) = q
s
(0). Thus, the problem
of tracking the n-dimensional vector q
s,d
can be reduced
to that of keeping the scalar quantity s at zero. More pre-
cisely, the problem of tracking the n-dimensional vector
q
s,d
can in effect be replaced by a 1st-order stabilization
problem in s. Actually, the stabilization process in s can
be divided into two phases. The st phase is to make s ap-
proach and nally hit the manifold B(t) which is dened
as
B(t) = {q
s
|s(q
s
; t) } . . . . . . . . . (39)
where > 0 denotes the boundary layer thickness. While
the second phase is to make s converge to zero asymptot-
ically in the boundary layer (Fig. 3).
3.1. Tracking Time Analysis
In the proof of Theorem 1, we dene the Lyapunov
function as
V(t) =
1
2
s
T
H
s
s +
1
4

P
T
(2+I)

P =V
1
(t) +V
2
(t) (40)
After taking the control lawEq. (20) and parameter update
law Eq. (21), nally the derivative of V(t) can be written
as

V(t) = k s
T
sgn(s)

P
T

P =

V
1
(t) +

V
2
(t) . (41)
Extracting parts of the elements in V
1
(t) as
n

k=1
s
2
k
H
s,kk
and
differentiating the ordinary element, we obtain
_
1
2
s
2
k
H
s,kk
_
k
k
s
k
sgn(s
k
) = k
k
|s
k
| . . (42)
Eq. (42) states that the distance to the surface, as mea-
sured by s
2
k
, decrease along all system trajectories. Thus,
it constrains trajectories to point towards the manifold
B(t), as illustrated in Fig. 3. In detail, let t
reach
k
be the re-
quired time of the k-th generalized coordinate q
s
k
to reach
the surface s
k
= 0. Integrating the left side of Eq. (42)
between t = 0 and t =t
reach
k
leads to
_
t
reach
k
0
1
2
d
dt
s
2
k
H
s,kk
dt =
1
2
H
s
kk
s
2
k

t=t
reach
k
t=0
=
1
2
H
s,kk
s
k
(t = 0)
2
. (43)
while the integration of the right side between t = 0 and
t =t
reach
k
can be written as

_
t
reach
k
0
k
k
|s
k
| dt
_
t
reach
k
0
k
k
|s
k
(t = 0)| dt
= k
k
|s
k
(t = 0)|t
reach
k
. (44)
Applying the inequality relation in Eq. (42), we get the ac-
quired time for any generalized coordinate q
s
k
to get s
k
=0
t
reach
k

H
s,kk
2k
k
|s
k
(t = 0)| . . . . . . . . . (45)
Fig. 3. Two phases for transferring interested state to the de-
sired state. The rst phase is to drive the initial state q
s,d,k
(0)
to reach the boundary layer; the second phase is to make the
state q
s,k
(t) converge to the desired state q
s,d,k
(t
f
) asymptot-
ically.
Fig. 4. Position error of the interested states in the second
phase. The error between the desired state and actual state
of the human joint decreases to zero exponentially.
Furthermore, manifold denition of B(t) implies that once
on the surface, s(t) = 0 , i.e.,

q
s
+ q
s
= 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . (46)
The solution to the Eq. (46) is
q
s
= e
t
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . (47)
Plugging the denition in Eq. (37), we can obtain q
s

q
s,d
= e
t
. Hence, the tracking error q
s
q
s,d
tends to
zero with a time constant exponentially (Fig. 4). In
other words, the proposed approach is exponentially sta-
ble.
3.2. Static Tracking Error Analysis
At the second phase, bounds on s can be directly trans-
lated into bounds on the tracking error vector q
s
, and
therefore the scalar s represents a true measure of tracking
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010 423
Dong, H., Luo, Z., and Nagano, A.
Fig. 5. Relation between q
s,k
,

q
s,k
and s
k
(1 k n) in
Laplace space. From the knowledge of Laplace transform, it
is possible to get the upper bound of joint angle by integra-
tion.
performance. Indeed, by denition Eq. (38), the tacking
error q
s
is obtained from s through a rst-order lowpass
lters (Fig. 5), where p = d/dt is the Laplace operator.
From the denition of s in Eq. (38), for the rst term of
s, we obtain
s
1
=

q
s,1
+
1
q
s,1
. . . . . . . . . . . . (48)
i.e.,
q
s,1
= (p+
1
)s
1
. . . . . . . . . . . . (49)
where p = d/dt. According to the signal processing
knowledge, we have
L(e

1
t
) =
_

0
e

1
t
e
pt
dt =
1
p+
. . . . (50)
where L() is Laplace operator. By applying the convolu-
tion theorem, we obtain
q
s,1
=
_
t
0
e

1
(tT)
s
1
(T)dT. . . . . . . (51)
According to the assumption q
s
(0) = 0 and |s(t)| < ,
|s
k
(t)| <
k
(1 k n) the upper bound of q
s,1
(t) can
be obtained
| q
s,1
(t)|
1
_
t
0
e

1
(tT)
dT =

1

1
e

1
T
1
t

T=t
T=0
=

1

1
_
1e

1
t
_

1
. . . . . (52)
The derivation is the same of q
s,k
, where 1 k n. In all,
we obtain

q
s,k
(t)

k
, (1 k n). . . . . . . (53)
For the purpose of making use of the above derivation, we
rewrite the lowpass lter unit as
p
p+
= 1

p+
. . . . . . . . . . . (54)
Then the upper bounds of derivatives of q
s,1
can be ob-
tained as

q
s,1
(t)

|s
1
(t)|
_
1
_
t
0

1
e

1
T
1
t
dT
_
= |s
1
(t)|
_
1+
1

1
e

1
T
1
t

T=t
T=0
_
=
1
_
1+

1

1
e

1
t
_
2
1
. . (55)
The same derivation to the other generalized joints, we
obtain

q
s,k
(t)

2
k
, 1 k n. . . . . . . . (56)
4. Simulation and Analysis
In the simulation, at rst we used AUTOLEV to con-
struct the human model and then exported the model as a
MATLAB code. After that, we added the proposed strat-
egy codes, including human attitude control and human
parameter update, into the MATLAB code. By running
the code, we obtained all the information about the po-
sitions, velocities and accelerations of the human model.
The animation was done based on these data with VOR-
TEX where the skeleton model was constructed by con-
necting the bones composed of polygon points. It is noted
that in the simulation, we assume the robot realize perfect
force control.
4.1. Human Model Conguration
In the simulation, we take a normal human body into
account which is composed of 16 parts, including head,
chest, mid-trunk, lower-trunk, upper arms (left and right),
lower arms (left and right), hands (left and right), upper
legs (left and right), lower legs (left and right) and feet
(left and right). Each two parts (or two links) are con-
nected by one joint. According to the physiological struc-
ture of the human body, the joints vary from 1 DOF to
3 DOF. In all, the human body model we considered has
35 DOF with 1.7142 m height and 72.81 kg weight. The
detailed parameters of the human body model are shown
in Table 1 [12, 13].
As we all know that the human joint can not rotate
from 0

to 360

. For example, the neck can only rotate in

the interval [/2 /2] when we turn around our head.
Moreover, there are passive joint moments corresponding
to the constriction forces and moments developed by lig-
aments, joint capsules and other soft tissues around the
joints. Based on the previous researches by Anderson et
al. and Yamaguchi, we used the passive moment
pass
in
the simulation as

pass
=
+
e

+
(qq
+
)
+

(qq

)
. . . . (57)
where q
+
and q

are the threshold angle beyond which

the passive moment takes effect. The passive moment is
small in the interval q

q q
+
and it becomes large
very quickly if q > q
+
or q < q

as shown in Fig. 6.
From the viewpoint of geometrics,
+
and

denote
424 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010
Adaptive Attitude Control of Time-Varying Model of Human Body
Table 1. Anthropological parameter values. The human body model used in the simulation is a normal body with 1.7142 m height
and 72.81 kg weight which totally has 35 DOF. Specically, the anthropological items include length, mass center position and
inertia coefcients
Segment Length (m) Mass (kg) MCS pos (m) I
11
(kg.m
2
) I
22
(kg.m
2
) I
33
(kg.m
2
)
Head 0.2429 5.07 0.1215 0.027 0.020 0.030
Chest 0.2421 11.65 0.1226 0.174 0.148 0.070
Mid-Trunk 0.2155 11.92 0.0970 0.129 0.121 0.081
Lower-Trunk 0.1457 8.15 0.0891 0.065 0.060 0.053
Upper Arm 0.2817 1.98 0.1626 0.013 0.004 0.011
Lower Arm 0.2689 1.18 0.1230 0.007 0.001 0.006
Hand 0.0862 0.45 0.0681 0.001 0.001 0.001
Upper Leg 0.3960 10.34 0.1622 0.175 0.036 0.175
Lower Leg 0.4300 3.16 0.1890 0.037 0.006 0.035
Foot (antero posterior) 0.1788 0.90 0.0652 0.001 0.004 0.004
Foot (vertical) 0.0420 0.0210
Hip Width 0.0835
0.5 0 0.5
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
x 10
5
q (rad)
P
a
s
s
i
v
e

m
o
m
e
n
t

(
k
g
.
m
2
)
q
+
q
0.2 0.15 0.1 0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
6
4
2
0
2
4
6
q (rad)
P
a
s
s
i
v
e

m
o
m
e
n
t

(
k
g
.
m
2
)
(a) (b)
Fig. 6. Passive moment term. The parameters are set as q
+
= 0.175, q

= 0.175,
+
= 0.085,

= 0.085,
+
= 30.72,

= 30.72. It is easy to see that the value of passive moment in the interval of [q

, q
+
] is very small while increasing rapidly
outside that interval.
how sensitive the passive moment is and
+
and

de-
note what magnitude level the passive moment is. In
Fig. 6, it is shown that
+
and

decide the steepness of

the curve and
+
and

determine the vertical extension

of the curve. In the simulation, the passive moments were
implemented in the joints of chest-midtrunk, midtrunk-
lowertrunk, lowertrunk-upperleg, upperleg-lowerleg and
lowerleg-foot where the parameters of passive moment
are shown in Table 2 [14].
For the other joints, there were no passive moment
models available in the literature. However, we have to
make sure the angles of these joints are in the reasonable
range. Hence, we add passive angle joint moment

ang cont
=
+
e

+
(qq
+
)
+

(qq

)
q . (58)
into the human model where the passive term q acts as
a damping component.
4.2. Simulation Results
The simulation was implemented by coordination of
three software packages, including AUTOLEV, MAT-
LAB and VORTEX. The detailed cooperation relations
are explained as follows. AUTOLEV is used to construct
the dynamic model of human body for further computa-
tion [15]. As MATLAB is very powerful in computing,
we choose it to do the main computation as a solution tool
for ordinary differential equations; although VORTEX is
able to do physical simulation, the programming grammar
is a bit complex. Hence, we just use its stereoscopic pre-
sentation function to make animations. More specically,
the simulation process is explained as the following three
phases:
Construct the dynamics of human body model. We
imported the human body parameters, including set-
tings of link, joint and passive moment, into AU-
TOLEV. For efcient computation, AUTOLEV auto-
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010 425
Dong, H., Luo, Z., and Nagano, A.
Table 2. Passive moment parameters of human joints. The values of
+
,

,
+
,

, q
+
and q

are based on the research of

human lower extremity model.
Joint Joint Joint Axes
+

+

q
+
q

Type
Chest-MidTrunk 3 DOF
1 0 0 0.250 20.360 0.250 20.360 0.085 0.085
0 1 0 0.250 20.360 0.250 20.360 0.085 0.085
0 0 1 0.350 30.720 0.250 20.360 0.085 0.085
MidTrunk-LowerTrunk 3 DOF
1 0 0 0.250 20.360 0.250 20.360 0.085 0.085
0 1 0 0.250 20.360 0.250 20.360 0.085 0.085
0 0 1 0.350 30.720 0.250 20.360 0.085 0.175
LowerTrunk-UpperLeg 3 DOF
1 0 0 0.030 14.940 0.030 14.940 0.500 0.500
0 1 0 0.030 14.940 0.030 14.940 0.920 0.920
0 0 1 0.244 5.050 1.510 21.880 1.810 0.470
UpperLeg-LowerLeg 1 DOF 0 0 1 6.090 33.940 11.030 11.330 0.130 2.400
LowerLeg-Foot 1 DOF 0 0 1 2.030 38.110 0.180 42.120 0.520 0.740
Fig. 7. Flow diagram of simulation program. The sim-
ulation uses three software packages including AUTOLEV,
MATLAB and VORTEX. After adding control module and
identication module, the MATLAB source code generated
by AUTOLEV is executed. Such computation results (in-
cluding how the human body model moves) are used for
making animations by VORTEX.
matically generated 6773 intermediate variables and
constructed 35 dynamic equations. After compiling,
the nal dynamic equations were exported as exe-
cutable source code of MATLAB (or C) for further
computation.
Compute the motion of human body. The MATLAB
source code generated by AUTOLEV does not con-
tain any attitude control strategy. Hence, we have
to add the codes of human attitude control and hu-
man parameter update into the basic MATLAB code.
More specically, one execution cycle can be ex-
plained as follows (Fig. 7). The function ReadUser-
Input() initiates all the coefcients and parameters
for simulation, such as the mass, inertia coefcient,
and initial posture of human body model. Then Ope-
nOutputFilesAndWriteHeadings() makes text les
(from human.1 to human.45) for storing nal motion
results. The newmdlDerivatives() with adaptive con-
trol function calculates and returns the derivatives
of the continuous interested states of the human
model. After that, the ordinary differential equations
representing the dynamics of human body under con-
trol and identication is solved by solver Ode45()
and the nal results are outputted to VORTEX for
animation.
Animate the whole dynamics. At rst, the poly-
gons of human body bones were built by the soft-
ware PRO/ENGINEER. Then the polygons of bones
were imported into VORTEX and presented in stereo
display. After that, the bones were connected accord-
ing to the physiological annexation. Finally, the mo-
tion data resolved by MATLAB was used to drive
the joints. With the movement of skeleton model,
the animation was presented.
In the simulation, we chose the position of head (denoted
as P
h,x
, P
h,y
, P
h,z
), the angle drift off the horizontal line
of lower-trunk (denoted as
1,x
,
1,y
,
1,z
), the angle of
lower-trunk and upper-leg (denoted as
2,x
,
2,y
,
2,z
) to
constitute the interested states (Fig. 8), i.e.,
q
s
=
_
P
h,x
, P
h,y
, P
h,z
,
1,x
,
1,y
,
1,z
,
2,x
,
2,y
,
2,z

T
. (59)
The initial velocity and acceleration are set as q
s
(0) =
q
s
(0) = 0 and the desired states is set as
q
s,d
=
[0.2, 0.8, 0.01, 0.01, 0.01, 0.7854, 0.01, 0.01, 1.5708]
T
q
s,d
= q
s,d
= [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
T
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (60)
Applying the control law in Eq. (20) and adaptation law
in Eq. (21), we obtain

s
=
_
F
h,x
, F
h,y
, F
h,z
,
1,x
,
1,y
,
1,z
,
2,x
,
2,y
,
2,z

T
(61)
426 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010
Adaptive Attitude Control of Time-Varying Model of Human Body
Fig. 8. Choice of the interested states in lifting up hu-
man body. When lifting up human body, not all the motions
are essential to measure and control. Based on the proposed
approach, the interested states are chosen as follows: po-
sition of the head, angle drift off the horizontal line of lower-
trunk and angle of lower-trunk and upper-leg.
Then we choose
F
1
=
_
_
F
h,x
F
h,y
F
h,z
_
_
F
2

_

_
(
1,z
l
1,z
sin
1,z
+
2,z
l
2,z
sin
2,z
)
+(
1,y
l
1,y
cos
1,y
+
2,y
l
2,y
cos
2,y
)
(
1,z
l
1,z
cos
1,z
+
2,z
l
2,z
cos
2,z
)
+(
1,x
l
1,x
sin
1,x
+
2,x
l
2,x
sin
2,x
)
(
1,x
l
1,x
cos
1,x
+
2,x
l
2,x
cos
2,x
)
+(
1,y
l
1,y
sin
1,y
+
2,y
l
2,y
sin
2,y
)
_

_
(62)
where [l
1,x
, l
1,y
, l
1,z
]
T
denotes the distance between the
head position and the buttock. [l
2,x
, l
2,y
, l
2,z
]
T
denotes
the distance between the buttock and the application point
of F
2
. By applying F
1
and F
2
in the human model, attitude
control is achieved.
The animation of lifting up human body in our ap-
proach is shown in Fig. 9. At the beginning of the simu-
lation, we assume that we do not have any pre-knowledge
about the human body. Hence, the initial values of

H
s
,

C
s
and

G
s
are set to zero matrices (or zero vectors). As the
estimation of the human parameters goes on,

H
s
,

C
s
and

G
s
converge to their true values of H
s
, C
s
and G
s
.
The energy, position and angle changes are shown in
Fig. 10. It is easy to see that it takes about 1 sec to change
the attitude of human body. There is a peak of kinematics
energy at the time of about 0.2 sec which means at that
time, the attitude changes very quickly (Fig. 10(a)). That
is because we assume no pre-knowledge of the human
body at the beginning of the simulation. Moreover, as the
identication of human body needs only about 0.2 sec, the
identication process is fast enough for safe nursing.
We set the desired position of the head as (0.2 m, 0.8 m,
0.01 m). Compared with other joints rotating in x or y di-
rection, the joints rotating in z direction turn signicantly.
Thus, the angle changes of these joints affect the head po-
sition in x direction greater (Fig. 10(b)).
(a)
(c)
(e)
(b)
(d)
Fig. 9. Snapshots of the lifting process. The ve snapshots
labeled from (a) to (e) are taken in the equivalent time in-
terval, which shows the whole process of lifting up human
body.
In the proof of Theorem1, it was shown that

H
s
2C
s
is
a skew-symmetric matrix which indicates that parts of the
states (or their linear combination) can be controlled as
a whole. In the simulation, we constructed a new state
which is the angle sum of head, chest, mid-trunk, and
lower-trunk. The angle drift off the horizontal line of the
newstate changes to 0.7854 rad (i.e., 45

) as shown in
Fig. 10(c). The angle between lower-trunk and upper-leg
changes to 1.5708 rad (i.e., 90

) at the time about 1 sec.

(Fig. 10(d)).
5. Conclusion
In this paper, a new reduced model adaptive force con-
trol strategy for lifting up human body was proposed.
Compared with previous researches, there are two signif-
icant advantages in the proposed attitude control. First is
that it is not necessary to measure human body, like height
and weight, in advance because the proposed approach
can automatically identify the human parameters online.
Second is that the human attitude control law guarantees
the accuracy. Moreover, the robust controller which we
used also tolerates the unmodeled uncertainty of the re-
duced human model. The proposed approach was ana-
lyzed completely from the view point of algorithm con-
vergence. From the derivation of tracking time and track-
ing error, the approach is reliable. The simulation veried
the proposed approach by lifting up a normal human body
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010 427
Dong, H., Luo, Z., and Nagano, A.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
200
400
K
in
e
m
a
t
ic

e
n
e
r
g
y

(
J
)
Energy of the simplified human model
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
500
0
500
P
o
t
e
n
t
ia
l
e
n
e
r
g
y

(
J
)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
500
0
500
Time (s)
T
o
t
a
l
e
n
e
r
g
y
(a)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
0.2
0.4
X

d
ir
e
c
t
io
n

(
m
)
Position of the head
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
0.5
1
Y

d
ir
e
c
t
io
n

(
m
)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
Z

d
ir
e
c
t
io
n

(
m
)
Time (s)
(b)
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
A
n
g
l
e

(
r
a
d
)
Angle and volicity off the hirizontal line of lowertrunk
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
6
4
2
0
2
Time (s)
V
o
l
i
c
i
t
y

(
r
a
d
/
s
)
(c)
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
A
n
g
le

(
r
a
d
)
Angle and velocity of the joint of lowertrunkupperleg
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
time
V
e
lo
c
it
y

(
r
a
d
/
s
)
(d)
Fig. 10. Energy and angle change with time when the hu-
man body is lifted up. (a) The change of energy. (b) The
position of the head. (c) The angle and velocity drift off the
horizontal line of the lowertrunk. (d) The angle and velocity
of the joint of lowertrunk-upperleg.
(35 DOF) with passive moments. It is novel that the ap-
proach proposed in this paper is not only designed for the
specic case of lifting human, but also can be used much
more widely for physically interacting with human. Our
future research will concern on how to change the lying
posture of human body by robot.
References:
[1] P. Padetsky, The Man Who Mastered Motion, Science, Vol.7,
pp. 52-60, 1986.
[2] T. Yamamoto, K. Terada, and Y. Kuniyoshi, Lifting Techniques for
the Humanoid Robots: Insight from Human Movements, Proc. of
IEEE-RAS Inter. Conf. on Humanoid Robotics, pp. 251-258, 2008.
[3] R. Takeda, K. Nakadai, T. Takahashi, K. Komatani, T. Ogata, and
H. G. Okuno, Automatic Estimation of Reverberation Time with
Robot Speech to Improve ICA-based Robot Audition, Proc. of
IEEE-RAS Int. Conf. on Humanoid Robotics, 2009.
[4] Z. W. Luo et al., On Cooperative Manipulation of Dynamic Ob-
ject., Advanced Robotics, Vol.10, pp. 621-636, 1996.
[5] F. Asano et al. Dynamic Modeling and Control for Whole Body
Manipulation, Proc. of IEEE Int. Conf. of Robotics and Automa-
tion, 2003.
[6] P. Song, M. Yashima, and V. Kuma, Dyanmics and Control of
Whole Arm Graps, Proc. of Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automa-
tion, 2001.
[7] T. Mukai et al., Development of The Tactile Sensor System of A
Human Interactive Robot RI-MAN, IEEE Trans. on Robotics,
Vol.24, pp. 502-512, 2008.
[8] M. Onishi et al. Generation of Human Care Behaviors by Human-
interactive Robot RI-MAN, Proc. of IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics
and Automation, 2007.
[9] T. Odashima et al. A Soft Human-interactive Robot RI-MAN,
Video Proc. of Inter. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2006.
[10] Y. Umetani and K. Yoshida, Resolved Motion Rate Control
of Space Manipulators with Generalized Jacobian Matrix, IEEE
Trans. on Robotics and Automation, Vol.5, pp. 303-314, 1989.
[11] K. Yoshida and Y. Umetani, Control of Space Manipulators with
Generalized Jacobian Mtrix, Space Robotics: Dynamics and Con-
trol, pp. 165-204, 1992.
[12] A. Nagano, R. Himeno, and S. Fukashiro, An Introduction to
Three-dimensional Rigid Body Dynamics: Vol.4 Simulation Us-
ing An Assisting Software Package, Japanse J. of Biomechanics
in Sports and Exercise, Vol.8, pp. 209-223, 2004.
[13] A. Nagano et al., A Three-dimensional Linked Segment Model of
The Whole Human Body, Int. J. of Sport and Health Science, Vol.3,
pp. 311-325, 2005.
[14] F. C. Anderson and M. G. Pandy, A Dynamic Optimization Solu-
tion for Vertical Jumping in Three Dimensions, Computer Methods
in Biomechanics and Biomechanical Engineering, Vol.2, pp. 201-
231, 1999.
[15] T. R. Kane and D. A. Levinson, Dynamics: Theory and Applica-
tions, McGraw-Hill, 1985.
428 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010
Adaptive Attitude Control of Time-Varying Model of Human Body
Name:
Haiwei Dong
Afliation:
Department of Computational Science, Graduate
School of System Informatics, Kobe University
Address:
1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan
Brief Biographical History:
2005 Received B.E. from Nanjing University of Science and Technology
2008 Received M.E. from Shanghai Jiaotong University
2008- Working towards Ph.D. degree in Kobe University
Main Works:
H. Dong et al., Novel Information Matrix Sparsication Approach for
Practical Implementation of Simultanesous Localization and Mapping,
Advanced Robotics, Vol.24, pp.819-838, 2010.
Name:
Zhiwei Luo
Afliation:
Professor, Kobe University
Address:
1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan
Brief Biographical History:
1992- Assistant Professor, Toyohashi University of Technology
1994- Frontier Researcher, The Institute of Physical and Chemical
Research
1999- Associate Professor, Yamagata University
2001- Team Leader, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
2006- Professor, Kobe University
Main Works:
Development of a human-interactive robot RI-MAN
Immersion-type dynamic simulation of human-robot interaction
Innovation of health engineering
Membership in Academic Societies:
The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE)
The Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ)
Japanese Neural Network Society (JNNS)
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Name:
Akinori Nagao
Afliation:
Department of Computational Science, Graduate
School of System Informatics, Kobe University
Address:
1-1 Rokkodai, Nada, Kobe, Hyogo
Brief Biographical History:
1996 B.L.A., University of Tokyo,
1998 M.A., University of Tokyo,
2001 Ph.D., Arizona State University
2002-2003 Boston University & Harvard Medical School
2003-2006 RIKEN
2006-2007 University of Aberdeen
2007- Kobe University
Main Works:
Nagano et al., An analysis of directional changes in the center of
pressure trajectory during stance, Gait and Posture.
Nagano et al., Neuromusculoskeletal computer modeling and simulation
of upright, straight-legged, bipedal locomotion of Australopithecus
afarensis (A.L. 288-1), American J. of Physical Anthropology.
Nagano and Komura, Longer moment arm results in smaller joint
moment development, power and work outputs in fast motions, J. of
Biomechanics.
Membership in Academic Societies:
International Society of Biomechanics (ISB)
American Society of Biomechanics (ASB)
Japanese Society of Biomechanics (JSB)
Japanese Society of Physical Education
Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.22 No.4, 2010 429