Pinpointed Muscle Force Control Using a Power-assisting Device

The demand for rehabilitation robots is increasing for the upcoming aging society. Power-assisting devices are considered promising for enhancing the mobility of elderly and disabled people. Other potential applications are for muscle rehabilitation and sports training. The main focus of this research is to control the load of selected muscles by using a power-assisting device, thus enabling “pinpointed” motion support, rehabilitation, and training by explicitly specifying the target muscles. By taking into account the physical interaction between human muscle forces and actuator driving forces during power-assisting, the feasibility of this pinpointed muscle force control is analyzed as a constrained optimization problem. Using our developed power-assisting device driven by pneumatic rubber actuators, the validity of the method is confirmed by measuring surface electromyographic (EMG) signals for target muscles.