A Kinematic Model of the Shoulder Complex Obtained from a Wearable Detection System

Abstract

Due to the complex coupled motion of the shoulder mechanism, the design of the guiding movement rules of rehabilitation robots generally lacks specific motion coupling information between the glenohumeral (GH) joint center and humeral elevation angle. This study focuses on establishing a kinematic model of the shoulder complex obtained from a wearable detection system, which can describe the specific motion coupling relationship between the GH joint center displacement variable quantity relative to the thorax coordinate system and the humeral elevation angle. A kinematic model, which is a generalized GH joint with a floating center, was proposed to describe the coupling motion. Twelve healthy subjects wearing the designed detection system performed a right-arm elevation in the sagittal and coronal planes respectively, and the motion information of the GH joint during humeral elevation in the sagittal and coronal planes was detected and quantized, with the analytical formulas acquired based on the experimental data. The differences in GH joint motion during humeral elevation in the sagittal and coronal planes were also evaluated respectively, which also verified the effectiveness of the proposed kinematic model.