At the Department of Automation, Biocybernetics and Robotics at the Jožef Stefan Institute, the existing one-dimensional system for applying force impulses to a subject was upgraded to a two-dimensional version. The upgraded system enables tracking the subject’s position and velocity across the entire horizontal plane and applying forces in all horizontal directions, thereby allowing more advanced motion analysis and future research opportunities. The system was upgraded with an additional pair of electric motors, placed orthogonally to the original pair. The existing control scheme was extended to initialize and control all four motors using the Simulink Real-Time environment and the CANopen protocol. A PD-controller was added to the extended control scheme to regulate the applied force based on the subject’s position.
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