COMTEST Project: A Complete Modular Test Stand for Human and Humanoid Posture Control and Balance

TL;DR

The COMTEST project introduces a modular, versatile test stand for benchmarking posture control and balance in humans and humanoids under various perturbations, enabling comprehensive performance analysis.

Contribution

It presents a novel modular system integrating perturbation, tracking, and analysis tools for evaluating balance in humans and robots, adaptable to different experimental setups.

Findings

System effectively measures balance performance under perturbations

Versatile design supports various robots, exoskeletons, and human experiments

Provides quantitative data for assessing posture control capabilities

Abstract

This work presents a system to benchmark humanoid posture control and balance performances under perturbed conditions. The specific benchmarking scenario consists, for example, of balancing upright stance while performing voluntary movements on moving surfaces. The system includes a motion platform used to provide the perturbation, an innovative body-tracking system suitable for robots, humans and exoskeletons, control software and a set of predefined perturbations, a humanoid robot used to test algorithms, and analysis software providing state of the art data analysis used to provide quantitative measures of performance. In order to provide versatility, the design of the system is oriented to modularity: all its components can be replaced or extended according to experimental needs, adding additional perturbation profiles, new evaluation principles, and alternative tracking systems. It will be possible to use the system with different kinds of robots and exoskeletons as well as for human experiments aimed at gaining insights into human balance capabilities.