Utilising human performance criteria and computer simulation to design a martial arts kicking robot with increased biofidelity

Abstract

The rules and regulations of Taekwondo stipulate how the sport must be played and the necessary personal protective equipment. As such, personal protective equipment performance under controlled rigid drop-tests is also outlined. Unfortunately, these impacts do not replicate human loading effectively, making conclusions about their performance unknown. However, it may be possible to use human kinematic data to improve the biofidelity of current impactors, including a current single-segment martial arts kicking robot. Five martial artists performed a series of roundhouse kicks while reflective markers on the kicking leg and pelvis were used to track hip, knee, ankle and foot positions. Using specific single-segment martial arts kicking robot robot parameters, computer simulation was used to model a single-segment martial arts kicking robot performance (1-SM) and to form a multi-segment, multi-joint model to match human kinematic data (3-SM). The 3-SM was found to produce similar kinematics to human performance while reducing the overall effective mass at impact, motor torque and stress concentration magnitudes in the leg when compared to the 1-SM. This study suggested that human performances could be used to improve current mechanical testing techniques without introducing much complexity to improve the external validity of protective equipment evaluation testing.

Muscle tension increases impact force but decreases energy absorption and pain during visco-elastic impacts to human thighs

“…They found slightly higher decelerations and much greater energy absorption in the relaxed condition, similar to Crisco et al (1996). However, the use of metal impactors can severely limit the biofidelity of testing for human on human impacts as these are between two nonlinear visco-elastic bodies (Pain et al 2008;Tsui and Pain 2012). The impact velocities and energies are often greatly reduced in metal impactor and anvil tests from those seen in human on human impacts and a more compliant impactor is therefore preferable (Milburn et al 2001;Pain et al 2008).…”