In an era marked by the rapid advancement of information technology, individuals now have the ability to enhance their organic bodies with mechanical and computational devices, revolutionizing their capabilities in everyday activities. However, the seamless integration of biosignals with mechanical counterparts continues to pose significant challenges. To address this, fuzzy logic (FL) emerges as a potential key to these challenges, offering a promising solution for handling the uncertainties and ambiguity inherent in biosignals. It thereby facilitates improved cyborg intelligence in an array of applications, including but not limited to wireless body area networks, brain–computer interfaces, prosthetics, and exoskeletons. Although previous works have highlighted the enhancement of cyborg intelligence using fuzzy sets, all of them only dived single aspects of the cyborg intelligence enhancement applications, leading to a lack of comprehensive understanding. Therefore, we provide a holistic overview of the state-of-the-art applications of FL in cyborg enhancement technology, encompassing its benefits, challenges, and potential directions for future research.

The increasingly pervasive usage of robotic surgery not only calls for advances in clinical application but also implies high availability for preliminary medical education using virtual reality. Virtual reality is currently upgrading medical education by presenting complicated medical information in an immersive and interactive way. A system that allows multiple users to observe and operate via simulated surgical platforms using wearable devices has become an efficient solution for teaching where a real surgical platform is not available. This article developed a bioinspired virtual reality toolkit (BioVRbot) for education and training in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. It allows multiple users to manipulate the robots working on cooperative virtual surgery using bioinspired control. The virtual reality scenario is implemented using unity and can be observed with independent virtual reality headsets. A MATLAB server is designed to manage robot motion planning of incremental teleoperation compliance with the remote center of motion constraints. Wearable sensorized gloves are adopted for continuous control of the tooltip and the gripper. Finally, the practical use of the developed surgical virtual system is demonstrated with cooperative operation tasks. It could be further spread into the classroom for preliminary education of robot-assisted surgery for early-stage medical students.

Research in the field of the powered orthoses or exoskeletons has expanded tremendously over the past years. Lower limb exoskeletons are widely used in robotic rehabilitation and are showing benefits in the patients quality of life. Many engineering reviews have been published about these devices and addressed general aspects. To the best of our knowledge, no review has minutely discussed specifically the control of the most common used devices, particularly the algorithms used to define the function state of the exoskeleton, such as walking, sit-to-stand, etc. In this contribution, the control hardware and software, as well as the integrated sensors for the feedback are thoroughly analyzed. We will also discuss the importance of user-specific state definition and customized control architecture. Although there are many prototypes developed nowadays, we chose to target medical lower limb exoskeletons that uses crutches to keep balance, and that are minimally actuated. These are the most common system that are now being commercialized and used worldwide. Therefore, the outcome of such a review helps to have a practical insight in all of: the mechatronics design, system architecture, and control technology.

Actuation of robotic systems is still an open question and represents a big challenge. Demanding performances including high power to mass ratio, capability of producing high power at low speed within a small-occupied volume are some of the key issues that required careful consideration. These criteria aimed to increase autonomy of humanoid robots. In this paper, a novel hydrostatic transmission actuator is proposed. The proposed actuator is controlled by displacement and has capacities for energy storage. This leads to an optimal solution in terms of power consumption. First, the proposed hydrostatic actuation principle is explained. A simplified hydraulic scheme to illustrate the energy storage capability is then provided. A mathematical model of the proposed solution is detailed showing our ability to access to the payload “jerk”. The built prototype is presented and its properties are outlined. Finally, a prototype of the actuator and the preliminary results of the actuator performance are presented, demonstrating the novelty of our solution.

Designing and control of biped robot are still open questions. Design of ankle joint which is considered one of the more compact with high power capacity and low weight is a big challenge. The very important role played by this joint during walking, makes its design and control the first step of having a robust walking biped. In this paper, a novel three dof hybrid mechanisms has been proposed. This mechanism is actuated hydraulically and uses cable technology for power transmission. The proposed solution fulfils the requirements induced by both geometrical and biomechanical constraints. At first, the geometrical and kinematics properties of the proposed solution have been developed. A simulation tool has been built using ADAMS software and used to carry out early design dimensioning of the several components. Singularity study is detailed showing the advantage of this new solution. Control method has been proposed and tested. Finally manufactured prototype of this solution is presented with preliminary results showing the performances of the mechanism. This mechanism is a part of an International patent accepted at INPI- France.

This paper deals with a research work aimed to develop a new three degrees of freedom (DOF) mechanism for humanoid robots. The main idea is to build hybrid (3DOF) mechanism, which avoids the drawbacks of the serial and parallel mechanisms. The new solution has to merge the advantages of both classical (serial and parallel) structures in order to achieve optimal performances. The proposed mechanism can be used as a solution for several modules in humanoid robot. The hip mechanism is taken as an example to illustrate the contribution of this paper. To evaluate the performances of the system, simulation of this new mechanism is carried out with Adams software. Geometrical and Kinematic models are developed and included in the simulation tool. Based on biomechanical data, analysis of the new kinematic structure is carried out. The design of the proposed solution is then described. Finally the first prototype developed for the HYDROi¿D robot's hip is presented. This mechanism is a part of an International patent accepted at INPI- France.

This paper deals with the biomimetic design of a humanoid head prototype. This prototype is developed in order to offer some mechanical device for multimodality objectives, and to demonstrate the importance of uncoupled eyes mechanism in humanoid head function. Indeed, the prototype development is based on our understanding of the humans head properties in the filed of visual and vestibular capabilities. The final prototype will have 3 DOF for each eye and 2 DOF for the neck. The developed device based as on one dof for each eye and one dof for the neck is able to show the vestibular ocular reflex (VOR) and the target tracking (TT) in real time. To carry out all these capabilities, a generic visual perception processor is developed and used. The first experiments on 3 DOF mechanism are given