Human Machine Interface

About

Technology Human machine interfaces are limited by the number of independent control signals that can be obtained to control higher degrees of freedom prosthesis or assistive devices. A new method is proposed here using task-specific temporal postural synergies, which enable controlling higher degrees of freedom of, for example a robotic hand with 20 joints, using control signals with less than 3-4 degrees of freedom.  Advantages Current technologies of human machine interfaces are limited by the number of independent control signals obtained from humans (brain, muscle, and kinematics). Using this method high degree of freedom prosthesis can be controlled using low degree of freedom control signals. This method proposes, in particular, time-varying kinematic synergies in angular velocities of joints that enables easier control for the end user. Position control has been done before which could be heavy on the user, as it needs position at every time point to be controlled. This method proposes, task-specific synergies. Synergies have been considered as common movement primitives that can be generalized for several kinds of movements. In contrast, from our studies, we have found that synergies are task specific. Hence synergies will be extracted by using the proposed methods, depending on the context of end user application.