A model for learning human reaching-movements

Reaching-movement is a fast ballistic voluntary movement towards a given target. The main characteristics of such a movement are straight line and a bell shape speed profile. In this work a mathematical model for the control of the human arm during reaching-movement is presented. In analyzing the model performance in mimicking a Two Degrees Of Freedom (2DOF) human movements, the following results were observed: (I) A nonlinear muscle model yields smooth movements with zero terminal velocity in response to simple control signals. This conclusion agrees with the general idea that the motor control is a combination of muscle dynamics with nervous control. (II) A typical reaching-movement can be performed with a typical rectangular excitation to the muscles, and in this way the dimension of the control problem is reduced