An upper limb motion support apparatus and an upper limb motion support system which are capable of significantly improving the enhancement of an operator's work efficiency and the reduction of their workload are proposed. A controller which causes an articulated arm and an end effector to perform three-dimensional motion according to the operator's intention based on a biological signal acquired by a biological signal detection unit causes the articulated arm and the end effector to perform cooperative motion in conjunction with the operator's upper limb motion by referring to content recognized by an upper limb motion recognition unit.

A method for controlling a gripping device (2) for a robot (20) comprising two or more gripping structures (4, 4′) movably arranged relative to each other and being configured to grip an object (8, 16) is disclosed. The method comprises actively restricting the displacement (ΔD) of at least one of the two or more gripping structures so that said displacement is less than or equal to a predefined maximum displacement (ΔD.sub.max). The method comprises the steps of detecting when at least one of the gripping structures is in contact with the object and increasing the force (F) exerted by at least one of the two or more gripping structures to the object from a predefined first level (F.sub.1) to a predefined second level (F.sub.2) when it has been detected that at least one of the two or more gripping structures is in contact with the object.

An upper limb motion support apparatus and an upper limb motion support system which are capable of significantly improving the enhancement of an operator's work efficiency and the reduction of their workload are proposed. A controller which causes an articulated arm and an end effector to perform three-dimensional motion according to the operator's intention based on a biological signal acquired by a biological signal detection unit causes the articulated arm and the end effector to perform cooperative motion in conjunction with the operator's upper limb motion by referring to content recognized by an upper limb motion recognition unit.