A Framework for Casualty Manipulation with Biomechanical Joint-Level Reaction Analysis

Extensive research has been conducted on understanding and shaping the interaction mechanisms between human and robots. While previous studies predominantly concentrate on minimal physical Human-Robot Interaction and collaborative efforts, our research investigated into uncharted territory: robots proactively approaching humans and taking charge of physical interactions. We present an innovative interactive simulation framework designed to facilitate the planning and control of robot-dominated physical contacts with humans, specifically emphasizing the manipulation of casualties. Our proposed simulation framework combines the computation of interaction physics between the robot and human casualty model in Gazebo with the analysis of biomechanical human joint-level reactions in OpenSim. Through telemanipulation, a simulation case study was conducted within this framework, and we presented findings on biomechanical joint-level reaction analysis resulted from casualty manipulation.