Redundancy resolution of a human arm for controlling a seven DOF wearable robotic system

The human arm including the shoulder, elbow, wrist joints and exclusion scapular motion has 7 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) while positioning of the wrist in space and orientating the palm is a task that requires 6 DOF. As such it includes one more DOF than is needed to complete the task. Given the redundant nature of the arm, multiple arm configurations can be used to complete a task, which is expressed mathematically by none unique solution for the inverse kinematics. Despite this mathematical difficulty, the motor control provides a unique solution for the arm redundancy as the arm is moved in space. Resolving this redundancy is becoming critical as the human interacts with a wearable robotic system(exoskeleton) which includes the same redundancy as the human arm. Therefore, the inverse kinematics solution resolving the redundancy of these two coupled systems must be identical in order to guarantee a seamless integration. The redundancy of the arm can be formulated kinematically by defining the swivel angle - the rotation angle of the plane including the upper and lower arm around a virtual axis connecting the shoulder and wrist joints which are fixed in space. Analyzing reaching tasks recorded with a motion capture lab indicates that the swivel angle is selected such that when the elbow joint is flexed, the palm points the head. Based on these experimental results, selecting the point around the center of the head as a stationary target allows to calculate the swivel angle and in that way to resolve the human arm redundancy. Experimental results indicated that by using the proposed redundancy resolution criteria the error between the predicted swivel angle and the actual swivel angle adopted by the motor control system is less then 5 Deg. This criterion or a synthesis of several additional criteria may improve the synergistic relationships between an operator and a wearable robotic system.