Control of human upper limb by electrical stimulation for accurate motion with external mechanical assistance of high bandwidth: basic mechanism and modeling

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K19843
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 61020:Human interface and interaction-related
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Huang Shouren 東京大学, 情報基盤センター, 特任講師 (20750029)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: human-robot interaction / mechanical assistance / high-speed vision / electrical stimulation / bimanual coordination

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The following aspects were achieved by this study. Firstly, electrical stimulation devices that can generate two channels of programmable electrical pulses with a max frequency of 1000Hz was developed. Closed-loop visual feedback control of human upper limb by the developed electrical stimulation from a range of 10Hz - 1000Hz was realized. Secondly, we developed the human-machine interaction system utilizing human visual and force feedback modalities and conducted the primary experimental studies on the interaction between human and external mechanical assistance of bandwidth in terms of bimanual coordination. As an early-stage study, we investigated and verified the possibility of human-machine interaction for accurate manipulation under human visual and force feedback utilizing the bimanual synchronous mechanism.

Free Research Field

human-robot interaction

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

We developed the very first systems to incorporate high-bandwidth mechanical assistance into control of human upper limbs, and laid the foundation for future studies on human upper limb control by electrical stimulation and by bimanual coordination under high-bandwidth mechanical assistance.