2000 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Analysis of Variable Impedance Characteristics in Human Movements and Its Application to Control of Powered Prosthetic Arms
| Project/Area Number |
11650450
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Control engineering
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| Research Institution | HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
TSUJI Toshio Faculty of Engineering, HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY, Associate Professor, 工学部, 助教授 (90179995)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KATO Takashi Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY, Research Associate, 大学院・国際協力研究科, 助手 (00284232)
HARADA Kensuke Faculty of Engineering, HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY, Research Associate, 工学部, 助手 (50294533)
KANEKO Makoto Faculty of Engineering, HIROSHIMA UNIVERSITY, Professor, 工学部, 教授 (70224607)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1999 – 2000
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| Keywords | motor control / impedance / robot / prosthetic arm / muscle model |
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of this research is to make a new impedance model of human movements and apply it to the control of powered prosthetic arms. The obtained results throughout the research can be summarized as follows :
1. In order to estimate the human impedance experimentally, it is necessary to measure force corresponding to external disturbance applied to an end-point of human extremities. In this research, a new experimental apparatus for the measurement of the impedance has been developed, by which the external disturbance with any direction in the horizontal plane can be applied.
2. Measuring the mechanical impedance of the wrist joint, we have analyzed the relation between the activation level of skeletal muscles and the joint impedance. The experimental results show that the viscoelasticity of the wrist joint changes depending on the muscular activation level. Then, a new joint impedance model using a nonlinear regression model of the muscular activation level has been proposed.
3. The proposed joint impedance model was implemented into a powered prosthetic arm with 3 degrees of freedom which are driven by ultrasonic motors. In this control system, a human operator can control the joint impedance itself by using his/her EMG signals.
4. The prosthetic control system was realized by combining the proposed impedance control system and a motion discrimination system that can estimate the operator's intended motions from EMG signals using a neural network. Effectiveness of the developed control system was confirmed from the experiments by an amputee.
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