Motivation

Musculoskeletal Modeling, Simulation and Motion Analysis

Musculoskeletal modeling and simulation have tremendous potential to improve quality of life by elucidating cause and effect relationships in individuals with movement disorders and by predicting effective surgical and rehabilitation treatments. Musculoskeletal simulations and motion analysis are becoming a viable approach for determining how the elements of the musculoskeletal system interact to produce movement. To apply this emerging technology and to evaluate potential treatments, we need human musculoskeletal simulations that accurately reproduce movement dynamics. Over the past two decades, musculoskeletal modeling, dynamic simulations and motion analysis have been used in a wide variety of applications, including the analysis of human walking, pathological gait, athletic skills, orthopaedics, workplace ergonomics, and computer animation.

Robotics-based Methods for the Reconstruction and Synthesis of Human Motion

In recent years, robotics computational strategies have contributed significantly to the analysis of human motion and manipulation skills. These analyses have led to advancements in the field of robotics, enabling human­inspired capabilities in robots and simulated systems as well as robot learning through observation. Furthermore, they also allowed for deeper understanding of the human body and its motion generation strategies. This requires accurate reconstruction of movement sequences, modeling of musculoskeletal kinematics, dynamics, and actuation, and suitable criteria for the characterization of performance. Building on methodologies and techniques developed in robotics, a host of new, effective tools have been established for the synthesis of human motion. These developments are providing new avenues for exploring human motion ­ with exciting prospects for novel clinical therapies, athletic training, and performance improvement.

Human Motor Control

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in developing robotics tools for rehabilitation and motion assistance, such as exoskeletons, motion guidance robots and active prostheses. A key challenge with these applications is designing systems which are capable of acting in synchrony with the human user, providing assistance when needed and guiding the user to proper form. This implies the need for accurate human motion and intent estimation and prediction, as well as developing an understanding human adaptation to the assistive device and performance of the human­-robot system, where human motion analysis tools play a key role.