Digital Human Model for Use in Simulation Environments for Tactile Human/Robot Interactions

Corvid Technologies, LLC and Stevens Institute of Technology (Stevens) propose to utilize the results and lessons learned from the Phase I effort to develop and demonstrate a digital human body model capable of quantifying internal stresses and strains in the anatomy and joint loads due to externally applied forces from robotic manipulation. Similar to the approach in Phase I, the proposed approach will utilize the best features of: (a) low-fidelity, computationally-inexpensive multibody dynamics tools and (b) high-fidelity, computationally-expensive whole body finite element models to inform the simulation environment with anatomically relevant kinematic and force information from the different software tools. The emphasis in Phase II will be primarily on scaling the approaches investigated during Phase I to the whole body, with the specific aim of addressing the benchmark human-robot interactions such as a robot gripping, lifting, dragging, rolling, and palpating the human body. The Phase II effort will involve developing a whole human-body multibody-dynamics tool with both revolute and prismatic joints that can function interactively with Corvid’s whole-body finite element model, CAVEMAN. In addition, the relationship between the stability of a robotic grip and the prehensile loads transferred in the body down the kinematic chain will be investigated, which may help bridge the gap between the low-fidelity and high-fidelity computational domains relating the gripping configurations to both grasp stability and injury prediction. Corvid and Stevens are uniquely positioned to efficiently accomplish the objectives of this proposal due to our respective expertise in computational injury biomechanics using whole-body finite element models, and kinematic modeling, simulation, control, and analysis of fully actuated and underactuated robotic hands, respectively.