• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.215-221
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• 2015

The elbow reflex, a principal reflex in the upper extremity, plays an important role in the diagnosis of cervical spine syndromes. In this study, the muscle activations of brachial biceps and triceps, and the kinematics of upper extremities were predicted using an activation model for the stretch reflex. The muscle activations that equated the simulation results estimated by the analysis model with the experimental results were obtained first, and the activations obtained from the simulations were compared with the electromyography signals obtained from the experiments, for model validation. The root mean squares error of the joint angles (obtained from experiments and simulation using the suggested model) was 0.056, a value that is half of that obtained using the previous model. This demonstrates that the suggested model corresponded well with the actual reflex.