Estimation of joint stiffness using EMG and application to master-slave system with an artificial muscle manipulator

A master-slave system has been used to operate a robot. This system is necessary to communicate human intentions to the robot. In this context, we focus on Myo-Electric (ME) potential. In many previous studies, a motor is used as an actuator, and the torque and position are estimated from the ME potential. However joint stiffness, which humans can change, is not considered. It is possible to solve this problem about the actuator by using the artificial muscle that we have studied, because the muscle can adjust joint stiffness. Therefore, it is necessary to estimate the joint stiffness of humans. In this study, we propose a method to estimate the stiffness of a human elbow. Furthermore, we apply our method to the 1-DOF manipulator of the artificial muscle.