Validation of RoboGuide to Support the Emulation of Sporting Movements using an Industrial Robot

Mechanical testing plays an important role in the development of athletic footwear. Typically, these tests do not accurately represent the forces and motions the footwear experiences during human use and there is substantial scope to improve this situation. The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which RoboGuide software can be used as a virtual environment to support the emulation of the ground contact phase of human locomotion on a FANUCTM six degrees of freedom industrial robot. A series of simple (linear and corner) and complex (sagittal plan heelstrike running) movements were completed on both the robot and RoboGuide using the same input kinematics. The effect of movement velocity, level of robotic smoothing and number of co-ordinate points defining the trajectory were also investigated. The resulting movement and timings on the robot and Roboguide were compared to the input kinematics as well as to each other. The results indicated small differences in the robot and RoboGuide trajectories for simple linear motions (< 30 mm), that became much greater for the complex footstrike motion (∼ 100 mm). These differences were affected by levels of smoothing and movement velocity and, notably, only with no smoothing did the robot and Roboguide approach the input trajectory. To conclude, RoboGuide does not accurately represent the motion of the FANUCTM robot and therefore only has limited use in supporting the physical emulation of complex sporting movements.