Trimanipulation: Virtual reality training platform

Supernumerary robotic limbs could significantly impact human capabilities, offering people to achieve actions that are not possible with only two natural hands. However, as three-hand control is not typical in everyday activities, it is currently unknown how to train people to acquire this "super" capability. In this talk, I will present a virtual reality trimanual platform that I developed during my master's thesis. This system offers to control three virtual hands separately or together in three degrees of freedom. The dominant foot served as the additional source of motor commands for the third hand. A study with twenty-four subjects was conducted to evaluate the system. The subjects were trained on independent or coupled trimanual tasks for five weeks using the platform. The result shows significant improvement in trimanual and third-hand control capabilities after both training tasks.