A robotic model to investigate human motor control |
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Authors: | Tommaso Lenzi Nicola Vitiello Joseph McIntyre Stefano Roccella Maria Chiara Carrozza |
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Institution: | (1) Biomedical Neuroengineering, Universidad Miguel Hernandez, Avd. de la Universidad s/n Edificio Quorum V, Elche, 03202, Spain |
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Abstract: | The role of the mechanical properties of the neuromuscular system in motor control has been investigated for a long time in
both human and animal subjects, mainly through the application of mechanical perturbations to the limb during natural movements
and the observation of its corrective responses. These methods have provided a wealth of insight into how the central nervous
system controls the limb. They suffer, however, from the fact that it is almost impossible to separate the active and passive
components of the measured arm stiffness and that the measurement may themselves alter the stiffness characteristic of the
arm. As a complement to these analyses, the implementation of a given neuroscientific hypothesis on a real mechanical system
could overcome these measurement artifact and provide a tool that is, under full control of the experimenter, able to replicate
the relevant functional features of the human arm. In this article, we introduce the NEURARM platform, a robotic arm intended
to test hypotheses on the human motor control system. As such, NEURARM satisfies two key requirements. First, its kinematic
parameters and inertia are similar to that of the human arm. Second, NEURARM mimics the main physical features of the human
actuation system, specifically, the use of tendons to transfer force, the presence of antagonistic muscle pairs, the passive
elasticity of muscles in the absence of any neural feedback and the non-linear elastic behaviour. This article presents the
design and characterization of the NEURARM actuation system. The resulting mechanical behaviour, which has been tested in
joint and Cartesian space under static and dynamic conditions, proves that the NEURARM platform can be exploited as a robotic
model of the human arm, and could thus represent a powerful tool for neuroscience investigations. |
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