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Robot arms that hold still while you walk

Wearable robot arms that try to keep their tools still in the room while the person wearing them walks.

Year
2026
Domain
Robotics
Role
MSc thesis, control and experiments
Stack
C++, Python, MuJoCo, Vicon
Fig. 1Simulation: arms locked, reactive control, and reactive control with feedforward, under the same torso motion.

The problem

An extra robot arm worn on your body is only useful if it can hold something steady. Every step you take moves the mount, so the arm has to cancel your motion rather than ride along with it.

What I built

The controller that ran on two Kinova arms mounted on a backpack, with motion capture tracking the wearer, plus a simulation of the same system for testing ideas the hardware couldn't. Most of the work was the unglamorous part: frames, timing, joint limits and keeping the arms away from the person wearing them.

This is my MSc thesis and it is still being marked, so the results stay in the thesis for now. Happy to talk through them in person.

Figures

The rig: two arms on a backpack mount, motion-capture cameras overhead, a treadmill underneath.
Fig. 2The rig: two arms on a backpack mount, motion-capture cameras overhead, a treadmill underneath.
Fig. 3A walking trial, filmed from behind.
How much of the wearer's motion the arms cancelled, across walking speeds and frequencies.
Fig. 4How much of the wearer's motion the arms cancelled, across walking speeds and frequencies.
What happens to tracking as the velocity signal arrives later.
Fig. 5What happens to tracking as the velocity signal arrives later.
The control loop.
Fig. 6The control loop.