A Kinematic Model of the Upper Limb Based on the Visible Human Project (VHP) Image Dataset

Abstract

A kinematic model of the arm was developed using high-resolution medical images obtained from the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project (VHP) dataset. The model includes seven joints and uses thirteen degrees of freedom to describe the relative movements of seven upper-extremity bones: the clavicle, scapula, humerus, ulna, radius, carpal bones, and hand. Two holonomic constraints were used to model the articulation between the scapula and the thorax. The kinematic structure of each joint was based on anatomical descriptions reported in the literature. The three joints comprising the shoulder girdle - the sternoclavicular joint, the acromioclavicular joint, and the glenohumeral joint - were each modeled as a three degree-of-freedom, ideal, ball-and-socket joint. The articulations at the elbow and wrist - humeroulnar flexion-extension, radioulnar pronation-supination, radiocarpal flexion-extension, and radiocarpal radial-ulnar deviation - were each modeled as a single degree-of-freedom, ideal, hinge joint. Locations of the joint centers and joint axes were derived by graphically inspecting the three-dimensional surfaces of the reconstructed bones. The relative positions of the bones were defined by fixing a reference frame to each bone; the position and orientation of each reference frame were based on the positions of anatomical landmarks and on the shapes of the reconstructed bone surfaces. Tables are provided which specify the positions and orientations of the joint axes and the bone-fixed reference frames for the model arm.

A Muscle-Specific Rehabilitation Training Method of the Human Shoulder Based on the Optimal Load Orientation Concept

“…In Fig. 5 (b), the coordinate system coincided with the ground reference described in [21]. However, except for the scenarios of single region, there were also multi-region distributions for several muscles.…”

“…2 showed the diagram of the upper limb under an external load ( P F ).The humerus reference frames defined in Fig. 2 were described in [21]. The P F was applied on the midpoint of the EL and EM which were the anatomical landmarks defined in [30], thus the total load was the resultant force of P F and the gravity of upper limb.…”

“…Therefore, a three-dimensional mathematical musculoskeletal shoulder model [12,21,22] was used to represent the geometry structure of the skeleton and muscles of the shoulder and calculate the muscle activate state under a specific external load. The geometric parameters of the model were developed on the basis of the CT images of bones and muscles collected from the Visible Human Project (VHP) database [21].…”

“…Therefore, a three-dimensional mathematical musculoskeletal shoulder model [12,21,22] was used to represent the geometry structure of the skeleton and muscles of the shoulder and calculate the muscle activate state under a specific external load. The geometric parameters of the model were developed on the basis of the CT images of bones and muscles collected from the Visible Human Project (VHP) database [21]. Considering translations were negligible compared with rotations, all the articulations of the shoulder, including the sternoclavicular articulation (SC), acromiocl-avicular articulation (AC), glenohumeral articulation (GH) and scapulathoracic articulation (ST), except for the ST articulation were assumed to be the ball-and-socket joints.…”

“…However, these musculoskeletal models based on the anatomical structure have not been applied in the rehabilitation robots adequately [9,20]. Therefore, in this paper, a three-dimensional mathematical musculoskeletal model [12,21,22] of the shoulder complex was used to represent the relationship of the muscles and external loads in determining the training strategy for the muscle-specific rehabilitation.…”