Reproducing human arm motion using a kinematically coupled humanoid shoulder–elbow complex

Abstract

A challenge that is gaining interest in robotics is the development of humanoids, which are robots that assume an anthropomorphic form. A difficulty with humanoid design is the kinematic interpretation of human joints and the development of mechanisms that can mimic human motion. The focus of this work is the development of a kinematic description of the shoulder–elbow complex. A mechanism capable of reproducing voluntary human reaching motions is introduced along with the procedural method of implementing the coupled motions that exist within the human shoulder complex and shoulder-elbow complex. Experimental results are presented highlighting the accuracy of this mechanism along with the similarities to human configurations.

Keywords:

• humanoid robotics
• inverse kinematics
• shoulder–elbow coupling
• method of successive iterations