Gait and waist motions always contain massive personnel information and it is feasible to extract these data via wearable electronics for identification and healthcare based on the Internet of Things (IoT). There also remains a demand to develop a cost‐effective human‐machine interface to enhance the immersion during the long‐term rehabilitation. Meanwhile, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) revealing its merits in both wearable electronics and IoT tends to be a possible solution. Herein, the authors present wearable TENG‐based devices for gait analysis and waist motion capture to enhance the intelligence and performance of the lower‐limb and waist rehabilitation. Four triboelectric sensors are equidistantly sewed onto a fabric belt to recognize the waist motion, enabling the real‐time robotic manipulation and virtual game for immersion‐enhanced waist training. The insole equipped with two TENG sensors is designed for walking status detection and a 98.4% identification accuracy for five different humans aiming at rehabilitation plan selection is achieved by leveraging machine learning technology to further analyze the signals. Through a lower‐limb rehabilitation robot, the authors demonstrate that the sensory system performs well in user recognition, motion monitoring, as well as robot and gaming‐aided training, showing its potential in IoT‐based smart healthcare applications.

Human body IoT systems based on the triboelectrification effect for energy harvesting, sensing, and interaction via wireless communication.

This article presents a fault-tolerant tracking control strategy for Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy model-based nonlinear systems which combines integral sliding mode control with adaptive control technique. Two common actuator faults: 1) loss of effectiveness and 2) increased bias input, are considered simultaneously. The fuzzy tracking control system is first established by incorporating the integral term of the output tracking error. Then, an appropriate fuzzy integral switching surface is designed such that the corresponding sliding motion only suffers from the unamplified unmatched disturbance. The solution of the nominal tracking controller can be transformed into a to convex optimization problem. In particular, an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode tracking controller is synthesized to ensure the accessibility of the sliding motion despite the effect of actuator faults and unknown disturbances. Finally, the proposed tracking strategy is verified by applying it to the dynamic positioning control of unmanned marine vehicles.

Enhancing the output performance of triboelectric nanogenerators through surface modification, mechanical design and power management.

Underwater gliders are being increasingly used for data collection, and the development of methods for optimizing their routes has become a topic of active research. With this aim in mind, in this paper, a complete-coverage path-planning obstacle-avoidance (CCPP-OA) algorithm that ensures avoidance for underwater gliders in sea areas with thermoclines is proposed. First, the entire sea area with the thermocline layer is stratified based on the underwater communication radii of the gliders. Next, the glide angles and initial navigation points of the gliders are determined based on their communication radii at each level to construct the complete-coverage path. Finally, by combining the ant colony algorithm and the determined initial navigation points, the complete-coverage path with obstacle avoidance is planned for the gliders. Simulation results show that the proposed CCPP-OA algorithm enables complete coverage of the entire sea area. Furthermore, the length of the planned path is shorter and the amount of energy consumed is less than that of other algorithms.

Jumping is an important locomotion function to extend navigation range, overcome obstacles, and adapt to unstructured environments. In that sense, continuous jumping and direction adjustability can be essential properties for terrestrial robots with multimodal locomotion. However, only few soft jumping robots can achieve rapid continuous jumping and controlled turning locomotion for obstacle crossing. Here, we present an electrohydrostatically driven tethered legless soft jumping robot capable of rapid, continuous, and steered jumping based on a soft electrohydrostatic bending actuator. This 1.1 g and 6.5 cm tethered soft jumping robot is able to achieve a jumping height of 7.68 body heights and a continuous forward jumping speed of 6.01 body lengths per second. Combining two actuator units, it can achieve rapid turning with a speed of 138.4° per second. The robots are also demonstrated to be capable of skipping across a multitude of obstacles. This work provides a foundation for the application of electrohydrostatic actuation in soft robots for agile and fast multimodal locomotion.