Definition of the Kinematic Plant for the Human Musculoskeletal System

This report defines a simulation of the kinematic plant (the human body) portion of the human musculoskeletal system. This simulation may serve as a model for the ideal robot as well as become the appropriate linkage system for human musculoskeletal simulations incorporated in more complex man-in-the-loop simulations. This human body is defined as an OpenGL hierarchical structure with 171 solid segments (bones) linked with 182 revolutes (up to 3 degrees-of-freedom per joint). It was developed in the Microsoft development environment using visual C++ and OpenGL. The bones are triangular mesh (stereolithography -stl) files derived from high resolution, computerized tomography scans of intact cadaver specimens. Muscle-tendon paths, ligaments and other soft tissue structures are modeled using a variety of B-splines. The result is an interactive, 3D simulation of musculoskeletal kinematics with real-time computation and update of interaction, viewing and control variables