Efficiently Generating the Ballistic Phase of Human-Like Aimed Movement

Human-like movement can be efficiently generated by driving a damped inertial plant toward a fixed target with position-based control, then switching to conventional feedback control as the desired endpoint is approached. Key characteristics of human motion, not easily replicated with traditional control architectures, result from tracking a position-based actuation template derived from human trials. Computation of the applied forcing function requires only linear scaling of this template, or displacement-normalized actuation program (DNAP). Simulated ballistic movements generated with the proposed method are shown to be consistent with human subject kinematic trajectories.