Biomechanical simulation and control of hands and tendinous systems

The tendons of the hand and other biomechanical systems form a complex network of sheaths, pulleys, and branches. By modeling these anatomical structures, we obtain realistic simulations of coordination and dynamics that were previously not possible. First, we introduce Eulerian-on-Lagrangian discretization of tendon strands, with a new selective quasistatic formulation that eliminates unnecessary degrees of freedom in the longitudinal direction, while maintaining the dynamic behavior in transverse directions. This formulation also allows us to take larger time steps. Second, we introduce two control methods for biomechanical systems: first, a general-purpose learning-based approach requiring no previous system knowledge, and a second approach using data extracted from the simulator. We use various examples to compare the performance of these controllers.