Analysis of Muscle Impedance Characteristics in Human Movements and Its Application to a Motor Rehabilitation Support System

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The purpose of this research is to develop a new muscle impedance model of human movements and apply it to the development of physical rehabilitation support system for the disabled. The obtained results throughout this research can be summarized follows:(1) A new impedance training system was developed using a linear motor system with two degrees of freedom and variable impedance control method. It was shown from experiments that the normal subjects can control voluntarily their impedance characteristics with high accuracy.(2) Using the developed training system, muscle impedance characteristics of the normal subjects was analyzed while training. Especially, effects of dynamic of the task objects to muscle impedance as well as sensitivity of spinal reflex pathway were examined.(3) A virtual sports system using the virtual reality technique was then developed. Tennis and air hockey were chosen as the target tasks, and hand impedance of the normal subjects was measured during virtual sports. It was show that the subjects change their hand impedance depending on the task environments.(4) Using the developed virtual sports training system, impedance perception training for patients with cerebellar disease were performed. From the experimental results, it was shown that the patients changed their arm and hand motions depending on the impedance properties of the task objects while the impedance training. This implies that impedance perception and motor control are highly related.