Human-like behavior of robot arms: general considerations and the handwriting task - Part II: the robot arm in handwriting

Abstract

This paper (Part II) investigates the motion of a redundant anthropomorphic arm during the writing task. Two approaches are applied. The first is based on the concept of distributed positioning which is suitable to model the "writing" task before the occurrence of fatigue symptoms. The second approach uses the concept of "virtual fatigue" (VF) which is a variable that dynamically behaves in a way analogous to the biological fatigue. VF enables the arm to reconfigure itself and take postures appropriate for the current level of fatigue. The study includes the analysis of legibility and inclination of handwriting, and a set of simulation results that show most practical aspects of robot human-like performance.