Abstract
Humans can adjust own impedance with environment impedance. This study has a hypothesis that humans use impact vibrations generated by hitting environments with a part of body for adjusting own impedance. Although the relationship between muscular activities and perceived impedance should be evaluated to investigate the hypothesis, it is hard to control muscle activities voluntary. So we propose an evaluation method for human impedance adjustment ability using an artificial musculoskeletal mechanism which has variable stiffness function to substitute a part of body. This device contributes to investigate relationships between perceived impedance and motion control under several stiffness conditions. We developed a prototype device. We confirmed that instantaneous vibrotactile stimuli which interrupt impact vibrations could affect the human impedance adjustment ability.
