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Virginia Tech

Design and Implementation of a Scalable Real-Time Motor Controller Architecture for Humanoid Robots and Exoskeletons

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Embedded systems for humanoid robots are required to be reliable, low in cost, scalable and robust. Most of the applications related to humanoid robots require efficient force control of Series Elastic Actuators (SEA). These control loops often introduce precise timing requirements due to the safety critical nature of the underlying hardware. Also the motor controller needs to run fast and interface with several sensors. The commercially available motor controllers generally do not satisfy all the requirements of speed, reliability, ease of use and small size. This work presents a custom motor controller, which can be used for real time force control of SEA on humanoid robots and exoskeletons. Emphasis has been laid on designing a system which is scalable, easy to use and robust. The hardware and software architecture for control has been presented along with the results obtained on a novel Series Elastic Actuator based humanoid robot THOR.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Electrical Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2017

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Shah, Shriya
Chairs dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Tokekar, Pratap
  • Leonessa, Alexander
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Stilwell, Daniel J.
  • Asbeck, Alan T.

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:12478
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/78734

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Shah, Shriya. Design and Implementation of a Scalable Real-Time Motor Controller Architecture for Humanoid Robots and Exoskeletons. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/78734