A synergy‐based control solution for overactuated characters: Application to throwing

Abstract

In the current paper, we present a bio-inspired solution for the control of overactuated models in animation, such as musculoskeletal models. This solution consists in the extraction of muscle synergies from human experiments, followed by a control method consisting of a series of optimizations to adapt muscle parameters and synergies to match experimental data. We apply the framework on throwing motions and the results show that these motions can be accurately reproduced on a character with a simplified muscular structure, while preserving important characteristics in the original synergies or control signals.2

Low-Dimensional Motor Control Representations in Throwing Motions

“…For instance, the relationships between the 2 control variables (or synergies) and well-defined task space goals (desired release speed and height) will be exploited to control highly redundant characters. A previous study [ 8 , 24 ] has already tested synergies on a subject-scaled character. It would be interesting to test the generic synergies presented in this paper on a variety of morphologies.…”

“…Thus, the aim of this work is to identify a compact representation of the control mechanism behind overhead throwing motions in order to (1) validate a control representation extraction methodology and (2) produce a low-dimensional control representation which could later be exploited to synthesize throwing motions in animation. Such representations could later be extracted from other types of throwing motions (such as sidehand and underhand throws) and simpler arm motions such as pointing, to feed a controller library that may produce a variety of motions from these compact representations [ 24 ].…”