Method for Calculating Cartesian Coordinates of Operator’s Arm Joints for Anthropomorphic Manipulator Master-Slave Control Using Exoskeleton

The main goal of the work is to increase the accuracy of the anthropomorphic manipulator master-slave teleoperation by calculating the coordinates of the operator’s arm joints. The master device is an exoskeleton worn on the operator’s arm, and the slave device is an anthropomorphic manipulator. A method based on the solution of the forward kinematics and empirical simplifications is proposed in this paper. The position of the nodal points of the exoskeleton was calculated by solving the direct kinematics problem. The coordinates of the operator’s arm joints, which were rigidly connected to the exoskeleton nodal points, were calculated geometrically. For the operator’s arm elbow joint, which was flexibly connected to the exoskeleton, an empirical relation was proposed. It simplified the calculation of the elbow joint position. The experiment showed a decrease in the mismatch between the operator’s arm angles and the manipulator joint angles from 20.7° to 2.9°. The proposed method increases the convenience of the master-slave control.