EXOSTATION is a project aiming at building a complete haptic control station, which allows the operator wearing an exoskeleton-based haptic interface for the human to remotely control a virtual slave robot. The video presents the results achieved with the final system. It is composed of four main components. A human-arm exoskeleton used as a master haptic interface, its controller, a simulated virtual slave robot and a visualization tool. Demonstration scenarios are presented in the video and show the capabilities of the system.

EXOSTATION is a project aiming at building a complete haptic control station, which allows the operator wearing an exoskeleton-based haptic interface for the human arm to remotely control a virtual slave robot. This paper briefly describes the various components : the Sensoric Arm Master (SAM), a portable haptic exoskeleton, the Exoskeleton COntroller (ECO), the slave simulator, simulating an anthropomorphic manipulator and a 3D visualisation client. Several teleoperation control strategies (impedance, hybrid control, 3-channel) have been tested and compared in order to evaluate their performances. The last has shown the best behavior in term of haptic feedback. Finally, a focus is made on the application, and how various manipulation and operation tasks can be performed to assess the system's performances (contact wall, objects manipulation, screwing). Users who tested the system were very impressed by the easiness of operation with the exoskeleton and felt the advantages of a force feedback information.

This paper reports on the current status of the effort conducted at ULB in order to develop a portable muscular rehabilitation device for telemedicine applications. It is divided into four parts. The first part recalls the basic modes of muscular rehabilitation and gives a brief overview of commercial rehabilitation machines as well as portable devices under development. The second part describes the design of the proposed device and justifies the selection of MR-fluid brake actuation. The third part is devoted to the description of the control strategies implemented on the device. Finally, the last part describes preliminary results obtained with the device for the various exercise modes.

This paper presents the development of SAM, the Sensoric Arm Master, a 7-DOF portable exoskeleton with integrated actuation and sensors. Local joint control is implemented to improve performances of the device. Some experiments have been conducted with the system to show the functionality of the exoskeleton device linked to a virtual reality.

This paper introduces a novel type of actuator that is investigated by ESA for force-reflection to a wearable exoskeleton. The actuator consists of a DC motor that is relocated from the joint by means of Bowden cable transmissions. The actuator shall support the development of truly ergonomic and compact wearable man-machine interfaces. Important Bowden cable transmission characteristics are discussed, which dictate a specific hardware design for such an actuator. A first prototype is shown, which was used to analyze these basic characteristics of the transmissions and to proof the overall actuation concept. A second, improved prototype is introduced, which is currently used to investigate the achievable performance as a master actuator in a master-slave control with force-feedback. Initial experimental results are presented, which show good actuator performance in a 4 channel control scheme with a slave joint. The actuator features low movement resistance in free motion and can reflect high torques during hard contact situations. High contact stability can be achieved. The actuator seems therefore well suited to be implemented into the ESA exoskeleton for space-robotic telemanipulation.