Engineering understanding of control principle on human balance including simultaneous learning in motor and sensory systems

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H02879
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Intelligent robotics
• Research Institution: Gifu University
• Principal Investigator: Ito Satoshi 岐阜大学, 工学部, 教授 (70291911)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 知能ロボット / 平衡制御 / 運動計測 / 運動学習 / 知覚変化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Human motor learning is featured as the variation of motor patterns with respect to the environmental changes. Recently, a study of human arm reaching movement reported that, in addition to such a learning on motor system, a part of the sensory system that is utilized in the current motor control can be affected by a kind of learning. Then, this study set a hypothesis that this simultaneous learning of the motor and sensory systems can take place in human balance control, and established an experimental method for simultaneous learning to emerge. Furthermore, a theoretical model was constructed to explain the human behaviors in the balance control, which was replayed using a robot we manufactured.

Free Research Field

知能ロボティクス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

通常われわれがセンサを利用するとき，最初に所定の物理量が正しく出力できるように初期設定／キャリブレーションを行い，その設定を維持したまま利用し続ける．しかし，本研究で取り扱うヒトの振舞いは，運動を学習しながらセンサ系も微調節を行っていることを示唆している．この発見は，今後ヒトに似た振舞いをする親しみやすいロボットの実現に貢献するだけでなく，ヒトの運動系・感覚系がどのような仕組みで機能しているのかを理解する上で重要な情報を提供する．