title: On the Kinematic Motion Primitives (kMPs) - Theory and Application.
abstract: Human neuromotor capabilities guarantee a wide variety of motions. A full understanding of human motion can be beneficial for rehabilitation or performance enhancement purposes, or for its reproduction on artificial systems like robots. This work aims at describing the complexity of human motion in a reduced dimensionality, by means of kinematic Motion Primitives (kMPs). A set of five invariant kMPs are identified for periodic motions, and a set of two kMPs for discrete motions. It is shown how these two sets of kMPs can be combined to synthesize more complex motion as the simultaneous execution of the periodic and the discrete motions. The results reported are an evidence of the theory of Central Pattern Generators (CPG), showing its effects on the kinematics, and are related to what presented in the literature on the Motor Primitives extracted from EMG signals. Experimental tests with the COmpliant huMANoid (COMAN) were performed to show that the kMPs extracted from human subjects can be used to transfer the features of human locomotion to the gait of a robot.
authors.affiliation: Department of Advanced Robotics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Genova, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Moro
authors.forename: Nikos G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Tsagarakis
authors.forename: Darwin G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Caldwell
keywords: COMAN robot; central pattern generators; combination of periodic and discrete movements; dimensionality reduction; human motion analysis; kinematic Motion Primitives (kMPs)