Supernumerary Robotic Limb System
for Daily Manipulation Task Assistance

🦾 Superlimb Manipulation

Chaerim Wendy Moon

Abstract

With growing interest in augmenting human capabilities, Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRLs) have been introduced to provide users with additional limbs for performing tasks that exceed the capabilities of natural human limbs. To effectively support human users, these systems are required to generate motions that are transparent and well-coordinated with the user. In addition, the wearable nature of SRLs introduces the need to consider the physical loads transferred from the robot’s motions to the user’s body.

This study presents a system framework designed to enable SRLs to assist users in daily manipulation tasks. The software architecture is designed to accommodate variations in hardware configuration, operational modes, and task requirements. To support operational mode flexibility, the system can selectively activate different perception-planning pipelines depending on the selected mode (i.e., teleoperation or vision-based manipulation). Beyond task execution, the system includes an additional planning layer, which generates moment-compensating motions to mitigate the physical loads transmitted from the robot to the user. The proposed framework is validated through both simulation and hardware experiments.


Selected Publications

Strategies for Moment Compensation in Supernumerary Robotic Limbs Manipulation Tasks
Chaerim Moon and Joohyung Kim
IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), August 2024
Keywords: Multi-Limb Coordination Object Manipulation

Assessing the Physical Impact of Supernumerary Limbs on a Human Subject: A Simulation Study
Chaerim Moon and Joohyung Kim
Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), July 2024
Keywords: Biomechanics System Modelling

Coordinated Motion Planning of a Wearable Multi-Limb System for Enhanced Human-Robot Interaction
Chaerim Moon and Joohyung Kim
Workshop presentation, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), September 2023
Keywords: Multi-Limb Coordination System Modelling

Robotic Backpack System with Pluggable Supernumerary Limbs
Chaerim Moon, Sean Taylor, Kevin Gim, Sankalp Yamsani, Kazuki Shin, Kyungseo Park, and Joohyung Kim
Demo Session, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), September 2023
Keywords: Teleoperation Human Pose Estimation

Motion Planning Framework

A coordinated motion planning pipeline for SRLs is developed to accomplish varied task objectives while attenuating the possible physical burdens on the human user. The motions of each robotic limb can be classified as task or compensation motions (i.e., tasker and compensator). For task motions, two operation modes are developed: teleoperation and vision-based manipulation modes. The compensation motion is planned for the idle robotic limbs to reduce the asymmetric moments applied to the user, without interfering with the primary task.

Reconfigurable Hardware

The hardware can accommodate up to four robotic limbs, allowing arbitrary docking mount combinations to suit different operational needs.

Object Manipulation Mode

The vision-based mode enables the robotic system to adopt a level of autonomy by leveraging visual perception to grasp and bring an object to the user. Each mode is designed to generate joint-space trajectories for a tasker.

Teleoperation Mode

The teleoperation mode is to enable explicit control of the robotic system based on the user's upper body pose, which is estimated in real-time by exploiting seven sparse IMUs (i.e., Xsens MTw Awinda).

BibTeX

@INPROCEEDINGS{10731227,
      author={Moon, Chaerim and Kim, Joohyung},
      booktitle={2024 33rd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (ROMAN)}, 
      title={Strategies for Moment Compensation in Supernumerary Robotic Limbs Manipulation Tasks}, 
      year={2024},
      volume={},
      number={},
      pages={491-496},
      keywords={Robot kinematics;Simulation;Human-robot interaction;Hardware;Real-time systems;Trajectory;Collision avoidance},
      doi={10.1109/RO-MAN60168.2024.10731227}}
    
@INPROCEEDINGS{10781831,
      author={Moon, Chaerim and Kim, Joohyung},
      booktitle={2024 46th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC)}, 
      title={Assessing the Physical Impact of Supernumerary Limbs on a Human Subject: A Simulation Study}, 
      year={2024},
      volume={},
      number={},
      pages={1-4},
      keywords={Robot motion;Torque;Dynamics;Human in the loop;Engineering in medicine and biology;Robots;Injuries;Gravity;Physical Human-Robot Interaction;Wearable Robotics;Human Factors and Human-in-the-Loop},
      doi={10.1109/EMBC53108.2024.10781831}}