Development of a Pneumatic Cylinders-Driven Arm Wrestling Robot System Worn on the Human Upper Limb

In this study, we develop a prototype pneumatic cylinders-driven arm wrestling robot system called AssistRobot that is worn on the human upper limb. AssistRobot, with two pneumatic cylinders and a force sensor, can control the force sense to the operator’s shoulder and elbow. Further, we simultaneously measure the human upper limb motion and the physiological index of skin surface electromyograms with circulation dynamics in response to forced actions by using the links mechanism of the AssistRobot system. The effectiveness of the system for the analysis of human upper limb motion characteristics is demonstrated.