Mechanical model of human lower arm

Abstract

The paper describes the development of a passive mechanical lower arm (PMLA) intended for physical human-robot interaction studies. Our research is focused on cooperation of a small industrial robot and human operator where collision is expected only between the robot end-effector and the lower arm of the human worker. A mathematical model of the passive human lower arm was built and adopted for the control of the PMLA. The mathematical model was optimized using the data from the experiments performed with human volunteers and implemented into the control scheme. The experiments with human volunteers were performed with safely low contact forces. The emulation system of the human lower arm was thoroughly evaluated in the robot impact experiments while using plane and line robot end-effector tools. During the experiment the impact force and the impact energy density were measured and compared to the measurements of the investigation with human volunteers. The PMLA proved to be a good emulation system of the passive human lower arm.