Evaluation of Posture Memory Retentivity using Coached Humanoid Robot

Abstract

Sports training with conventional feedback devices, such as mirror and video, has some problems. For example, it is difficult to accurately grasp all joint angles for target skill, and to gaze and to have interest at each joint angle. To settle such problems, we have proposed a new training method using a coached humanoid robot to reproduce participant's motion based on measured position data by motion capture system. The proposed method shows a superior training effort, since the robot is used not only for a feedback device and also for an avatar of self-coaching. As a basic analysis of the proposed method, this paper investigates posture memory retentivity, which is one of the important factors that influence the success of the proposed method, instead of motion for target skill. From experimental result, it can be seen that the training with the coached humanoid robot shows superior posture memory retentivity compared to the other two feedback device conditions, such as no feedback and mirror.