Real-Time Control of an Interactive Impulsive Virtual Prosthesis

Abstract

An interactive virtual dynamic environment for testing control strategies for neural machine interfacing with artificial limbs offers several advantages. The virtual environment is low-cost, easily configured, and offers a wealth of data for post-hoc analysis compared with real physical prostheses and robots. For use with prosthetics and research involving amputee subjects it allows the valuable time with the subject to be spent in experiments rather than fixing hardware issues. The usefulness of the virtual environment increases as the realism of the environment increases. Most tasks performed with limbs require interactions with objects in the environment. To simulate these tasks the dynamics of frictional contact, in addition to inertial limb dynamics must be modeled. Here, subjects demonstrate real-time control of an eight degree-of-freedom virtual prosthesis while performing an interactive box-and-blocks task. With practice, four nonamputee subjects and one shoulder disarticulation subject were able to successfully transfer blocks in the virtual environment at an average rate of just under two blocks per minute. The virtual environment is configurable in terms of the virtual arm design, control strategy, and task.

Virtual hand-button interaction in a generic virtual reality flight simulator

“…Besides the robotics, VR applications also help the medical area where hand avatars are constantly employed. They are used for various purposes, such as treatment of amputees (rehabilitating phantom limb pain) [18] and design of prothesis [19]. The developers of such applications employ simplistic or abstract hand avatars.…”

A Review on the Usability, Flexibility, Affinity, and Affordability of Virtual Technology for Rehabilitation Training of Upper Limb Amputees

“…Patient-centered: Virtual technology shifts the perspective from the technology to the patient [41,47,51], stimulating new prosthetic designs and recovery tasks [41]. To achieve improved control skills and muscle strength, amputees can undergo specific training programs in the virtual environment, which facilitates shorter recovery periods [45] and eliminates physical limitations [47].…”

Embodiment of a virtual prosthesis through training using an EMG-based human-machine interface: Case series

“…Furthermore, there is an extensive literature corroborating the embodiment of bodies, limbs, or virtual objects ( Cole et al, 2009 ; Slater et al, 2009 ; Sengül et al, 2012 ; Shokur et al, 2016 ; Buck et al, 2020 ). Considering that the learning acquired in a VR environment is transferable to the physical environment ( Bunderson, 2014 ; Gumma and Youssef, 2019 ; Kluger et al, 2019 ; Qian et al, 2020 ), the induction of virtual prosthesis embodiment could help the process of training and adaptation to the use of a physical prosthesis.…”