IEEE TRANSACTIONS SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, PART B 1 Human Arm-and-Hand Dynamics Model with Variability Analyses for a Stylus-based Haptic Interface

Abstract—Haptic interface research benefits from accurate human arm models for control, and system design. The literature contains many human arm dynamics models, but lacks detailed variability analyses. Without accurate measurements, variability is modeled in a very conservative manner, leading to less than optimal controller and system designs. This paper not only presents models for human arm dynamics, but also develops inter and intra-subject variability models for a stylus-based haptic device. Data from 15 human subjects (9 male, 6 female, ages 20– 32) were collected using a Phantom Premium 1.5a haptic device for system identification. In this work, grip force dependent models were identified for 1–3 N grip forces in the 3 spatial axes. Also, variability due to human subjects and grip force variation were modeled as both structured and unstructured uncertainty. For both forms of variability, the maximum variation, 95%, and 67 % confidence interval limits were examined. All models were in the frequency domain with force as input and position as output. The identified models enable precise controllers targeted to a subset of possible human operator dynamics