Development of a Biofidelic Artificial Arm for a Martial Arts Dummy

Abstract

There are currently no martial art dummies or training devices that offer biofidelic recreation of human joints and resistance. Having access to this type of training tool could greatly improve a martial artist's skill in the area of joint manipulations. To fill this gap in the marketplace, one subsystem of such a device, the arm, was modeled in SolidWorks and then built for testing. Design focused on the shoulder; the rest of the arm was built primarily to test the shoulder joint. The final design was made to match 50th percentile male specifications and mimic moderate muscular resistance. The resulting prototype was shown to work well for joint locks that only involve the arm (i.e. no bending at the waist or knees). Such a device represents a first in this area.