Human-machine interfaces based on EMG and Kinect applied to teleoperation of a mobile humanoid robot

Human-robot control interfaces have received increased attention during the past decades, since the introduction of robots in everyday life. In this paper, a novel Human-Machine Interface (HMI) is developed, which contains two components. One is based on the surface electromyography (sEMG) signal, which is from the human upper limb and the other is based on the Microsoft Kinect sensor. The proposed interface allows the user to control in real time a mobile humanoid robot arm in 3-D space, using upper limb motion estimation based only on sEMG recordings and the Kinect input. The efficiency of the method is verified using real-time experiments, including random arm motions in the 3-D space with variable hand speed profiles.