Surface EMG based posture control of shoulder complex linkage mechanism

The aim of this research is to develop a musculoskeletal robot arm, which has a similar mechanical structure to that of a human, to simply make the robot move similarly to a human based on his/her electromyographic signals. In recent years, many musculoskeletal robots have been developed to show advantages of their bio-inspired designs. In this research, we propose a new perspective of their advantages that the control using biological signals can be simplified thanks to the similarity of mechanical structure. To this end, the shoulder complex, which consists of several bones and joints, is focused because it is the most difficult part to develop in humanlike musculoskeletal robot arms. In particular, we develop a linkage mechanism, which can realize similar function to the shoulder complex, to make a surface electromyography(sEMG) based posture control applicable for this complex system. The advantage, that a simple mapping is still available to control the posture to be the same to that of a human, has been successfully shown in an experiment.