The research concerns the role of sensing and mechanical design in motor control in both robots and humans. The main focus is the determination of the mechanical control strategies that humans use in manipulation tasks and the creation of robotic controllers with comparable abilities. The project involves three parts: experimental measurement of human impedances in manipulation tasks, construction of simplified models of the human control, system, and evaluation of robotic task execution with human impedance characteristics. This work will enable an increased understanding of human motor control, a tool for human machine interface design, and better robotic manipulation.
