Bayesian Estimation of Potential Performance Improvement Elicited by Robot-Guided Training

• Published in: Frontiers in neuroscience 2021-10, Vol.15, p.704402-704402
• Main Authors: Takai, Asuka, Lisi, Giuseppe, Noda, Tomoyuki, Teramae, Tatsuya, Imamizu, Hiroshi, Morimoto, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: haptic guidance; human-robot interaction; motor training; Neuroscience; robotic teaching; skill level
• ISSN: 1662-4548; 1662-453X; 1662-453X
• DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.704402

Improving human motor performance via physical guidance by an assist robot device is a major field of interest of the society in many different contexts, such as rehabilitation and sports training. In this study, we propose a Bayesian estimation method to predict whether motor performance of a user can be improved or not by the robot guidance from the user's initial skill level. We designed a robot-guided motor training procedure in which subjects were asked to generate a desired circular hand movement. We then evaluated the tracking error between the desired and actual subject's hand movement. Results showed that we were able to predict whether a novel user can reduce the tracking error after the robot-guided training from the user's initial movement performance by checking whether the initial error was larger than a certain threshold, where the threshold was derived by using the proposed Bayesian estimation method. Our proposed approach can potentially help users to decide if they should try a robot-guided training or not without conducting the time-consuming robot-guided movement training.