In the context of sensor-based human-robot interaction, a particularly promising solution is represented by myoelectric control schemes based on synergy-derived signals. We developed and tested on healthy subjects a synergy-based control to achieve simultaneous, continuous actuation of three degrees of freedom of a humanoid robot, while performing functional reach-to-grasp movements. The control scheme exploits subject-specific muscle synergies extracted from eleven upper limb muscles through an easy semi-supervised calibration phase, and computes online activation coefficients to actuate the robot joints. The humanoid robot was able to well reproduce the subjects’ motion, which consisted in free multi-degree-of-freedom reach-to-grasp movements at self-paced speeds. Furthermore, the synergy-based online control significantly outperformed a traditional muscle-pair approach (that uses a pair of antagonist muscles for each joint), in terms of decreased error, increased correlation, and peak correlation between the subjects’ and the robot’s joint angles. The delay introduced by the two algorithms was comparable. This work is a proof-of-concept for an intuitive and robust myocontrol interface, without the need for any training and practice. It has several potential applications, especially for functional assistive engaging devices in children with social and motor impairments.

Synergy-Based Myocontrol of a Multiple Degree-of-Freedom Humanoid Robot for Functional Tasks

Lunardini, Francesca;Antonietti, Alberto;Casellato, Claudia;Pedrocchi, Alessandra
2019-01-01

Abstract

In the context of sensor-based human-robot interaction, a particularly promising solution is represented by myoelectric control schemes based on synergy-derived signals. We developed and tested on healthy subjects a synergy-based control to achieve simultaneous, continuous actuation of three degrees of freedom of a humanoid robot, while performing functional reach-to-grasp movements. The control scheme exploits subject-specific muscle synergies extracted from eleven upper limb muscles through an easy semi-supervised calibration phase, and computes online activation coefficients to actuate the robot joints. The humanoid robot was able to well reproduce the subjects’ motion, which consisted in free multi-degree-of-freedom reach-to-grasp movements at self-paced speeds. Furthermore, the synergy-based online control significantly outperformed a traditional muscle-pair approach (that uses a pair of antagonist muscles for each joint), in terms of decreased error, increased correlation, and peak correlation between the subjects’ and the robot’s joint angles. The delay introduced by the two algorithms was comparable. This work is a proof-of-concept for an intuitive and robust myocontrol interface, without the need for any training and practice. It has several potential applications, especially for functional assistive engaging devices in children with social and motor impairments.
2019
2019 41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC)
978-1-5386-1311-5
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/1118596
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 1
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 1
social impact