scholarly journals The effect of fatigue on the relation between work and speed, in contraction of human arm muscles

1924 ◽  
Vol 58 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 334-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. V. Hill ◽  
C. N. H. Long ◽  
H. Lupton
Keyword(s):  
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Tomiak ◽  
Tetiana I. Abramovych ◽  
Andriy V. Gorkovenko ◽  
Inna V. Vereshchaka ◽  
Viktor S. Mishchenko ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Harshil Patel ◽  
Gerald O’Neill ◽  
Panagiotis Artemiadis

Humans have the inherent ability of performing highly dexterous and skillful tasks with their arms, involving maintenance of posture, movement, and interaction with the environment. The latter requires the human to control the dynamic characteristics of the upper limb musculoskeletal system. These characteristics are quantitatively represented by inertia, damping, and stiffness, which are measures of mechanical impedance. Many previous studies have shown that arm posture is a dominant factor in determining the end point impedance on a horizontal (transverse) plane. This paper presents the characterization of the end point impedance of the human arm in three-dimensional space. Moreover, it models the regulation of the arm impedance with respect to various levels of muscle co-contraction. The characterization is made by route of experimental trials where human subjects maintained arm posture while their arms were perturbed by a robot arm. Furthermore, the subjects were asked to control the level of their arm muscles’ co-contraction, using visual feedback of their muscles’ activation, in order to investigate the effect of this muscle co-contraction on the arm impedance. The results of this study show a very interesting, anisotropic increase of arm stiffness due to muscle co-contraction. These results could lead to very useful conclusions about the human’s arm biomechanics, as well as many implications for human motor control-specifically the control of arm impedance through muscle co-contraction.


Author(s):  
Jiayue Zhang ◽  
Daniel Vanderbilt ◽  
Ethan Fitz ◽  
Janet Dong

Abstract Repeated lifting tasks are often required of industrial workers. Such repetitive loading of workers’ arms throughout the workday can lead to injury and fatigue. This paper details the development and prototyping of a wearable soft robotic device to augment a worker’s arms by sensing and mimicking the contractions of their arm muscles. The device shares lifting loads with the user’s muscles to increase their lifting capacity, thereby preventing injury and reducing fatigue. The human arm contains many muscles that coordinate to produce movement. However, as a simplified proof of concept, this project developed a prototype to augment just the biceps brachii muscle since it is the primary pulling muscle used in lifting movements. Key components of the prototype include a soft robotic actuator analogous to the biceps, a control system for the actuator, and a method of attaching the actuator to the user’s arm. The McKibben-inspired pneumatic muscle was chosen as the soft actuator of the prototype. The Electromyography (EMG) and pressure sensors are used to inform a hybrid control algorithm combining PID and model-based control methods. The method and results of the design and preliminary feasibility testing of the pneumatic muscle, the controlling algorithm, and the overall prototype are discussed in this paper. Based on these results, a wearable EMG controlled soft robotic arm augmentation could feasibly increase the endurance of industrial workers performing repetitive lifting tasks.


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