Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints

Despite worse actuators and long feedback delays, humans outperform robots in a number of tasks, including tool use and physical interaction. In order to study the human controller, this work explores interaction with three different elliptical kinematic constraints. The shapes of these constraints...

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Main Author: Arons, Nicolas
Other Authors: Hogan, Neville
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147474
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author Arons, Nicolas
author2 Hogan, Neville
author_facet Hogan, Neville
Arons, Nicolas
author_sort Arons, Nicolas
collection MIT
description Despite worse actuators and long feedback delays, humans outperform robots in a number of tasks, including tool use and physical interaction. In order to study the human controller, this work explores interaction with three different elliptical kinematic constraints. The shapes of these constraints were based on prior work: the circle was the same size as a previous crank-turning study; the aligned ellipse was based on estimates of the zero-force trajectory during circular crank-turning; the anti-aligned ellipse was a rotated version of the aligned ellipse. Subjects were given visual feedback on their velocity to decrease variability across trials, constraint shapes, and subjects. The velocity they were asked to track had a speed-curvature profile that was consistent with the two-thirds power law, which is widely reported in human motion. Hypotheses about the experiment were made by modeling human physical interaction with a Norton equivalent network. The anti-aligned ellipse was hypothesized to evoke normal force and velocity error values higher than the circle, and the circle was hypothesized to evoke higher normal force and velocity error values than the aligned ellipse. Statistical analysis revealed that the anti-aligned ellipse did evoke higher normal force and velocity errors than both the circle and aligned ellipse. There was no significant difference between the circle and aligned ellipse for either normal force or velocity error. The experiment was a success, however, in proving that constraint shape does affect the force that subjects exert on the constraint. This result suggests several further studies on human interaction with various kinematic constraints.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1474742023-01-20T04:02:37Z Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints Arons, Nicolas Hogan, Neville Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Despite worse actuators and long feedback delays, humans outperform robots in a number of tasks, including tool use and physical interaction. In order to study the human controller, this work explores interaction with three different elliptical kinematic constraints. The shapes of these constraints were based on prior work: the circle was the same size as a previous crank-turning study; the aligned ellipse was based on estimates of the zero-force trajectory during circular crank-turning; the anti-aligned ellipse was a rotated version of the aligned ellipse. Subjects were given visual feedback on their velocity to decrease variability across trials, constraint shapes, and subjects. The velocity they were asked to track had a speed-curvature profile that was consistent with the two-thirds power law, which is widely reported in human motion. Hypotheses about the experiment were made by modeling human physical interaction with a Norton equivalent network. The anti-aligned ellipse was hypothesized to evoke normal force and velocity error values higher than the circle, and the circle was hypothesized to evoke higher normal force and velocity error values than the aligned ellipse. Statistical analysis revealed that the anti-aligned ellipse did evoke higher normal force and velocity errors than both the circle and aligned ellipse. There was no significant difference between the circle and aligned ellipse for either normal force or velocity error. The experiment was a success, however, in proving that constraint shape does affect the force that subjects exert on the constraint. This result suggests several further studies on human interaction with various kinematic constraints. S.M. 2023-01-19T19:52:51Z 2023-01-19T19:52:51Z 2022-09 2022-10-05T13:45:38.438Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147474 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Arons, Nicolas
Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints
title Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints
title_full Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints
title_fullStr Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints
title_full_unstemmed Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints
title_short Human Interaction with Various Elliptical Constraints
title_sort human interaction with various elliptical constraints
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147474
work_keys_str_mv AT aronsnicolas humaninteractionwithvariousellipticalconstraints