Lecture

Extra Robotic Limbs & Entrepreneurship

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In course

BIOENG-448: Fundamentals of neuroengineering

Neuroengineering is at the frontier between neuroscience and engineering: understanding how the brain works allows developing engineering applications and therapies of high impact, while the design of new measurement and data analysis techniques contribute ...

Description

This lecture explores the field of robotic body enhancement with extra limbs, focusing on concepts like motor task null space, sensory complementary space, and the embodiment of extra limbs. It delves into the challenges and fundamentals of neuroengineering, including the development of robotic extra fingers for restoration and augmentation. The presentation covers topics such as the Soft Sixth Finger, the Robotic Sixth Finger, and Vibrotactile Haptic Feedback for intuitive control. It also discusses the results of Frenchay Arm tests for patients using these robotic enhancements, showcasing the potential benefits for chronic stroke patients. The lecture concludes with insights into the Neural Resource Allocation Problem and the technological advancements in wearable robotics systems for human augmentation.

Instructors (2)

Solaiman Shokur

2019 - now : Senior Scientist, Translational neuroengineering Laboratory, EPFL(Geneva) Team leader: CHRONOS project, a multi-center European project that aims at developing the first chronically implanted prosthetic hand for transradial amputee patients with bidirectional communication capabilities. NCCR Robotics: Bi-directional control of supernumerary limbs.2014-2019: Research Coordinator, AASDAP (São Paulo, Brazil) Responsible for both the scientific production and the clinical protocol at the AASDAP neurorehabilitation laboratory. 2013-2014: Postdoctoral associate, Walk again project, Insituto Santos Dumond. (Natal, RN, Brazil)Head of the engineering team in charge of the system integration. 2010-2012: Visiting scientist, Nicolelis Lab (Duke University). Development and validation of a virtual-reality based brain-machine interface for rhesus monkeys. 2007 – 2010: Teaching assistant, Laboratory of Robotics Systems (EPFL)

Silvestro Micera

Short biographical sketch Silvestro Micera received the University degree (Laurea) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pisa, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, in 2000. From 2000 to 2009, he has been an Assistant Professor of BioRobotics at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna where he is now the Head of the Neural Engineering group. In 2007 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA with a Fulbri

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mechanical engineering

Robotics: Topics in robotics

Related concepts (32)

Soft robotics

Soft robotics is a subfield of robotics that concerns the design, control, and fabrication of robots composed of compliant materials, instead of rigid links. In contrast to rigid-bodied robots built from metals, ceramics and hard plastics, the compliance of soft robots can improve their safety when working in close contact with humans. The goal of soft robotics is the design and construction of robots with physically flexible bodies and electronics. Sometimes softness is limited to part of the machine.

Robot

A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to evoke human form, but most robots are task-performing machines, designed with an emphasis on stark functionality, rather than expressive aesthetics.

Robotics

Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of electronics and communication, computer science and engineering. Robotics involves the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrates fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, information engineering, mechatronics engineering, electronics, biomedical engineering, computer engineering, control systems engineering, software engineering, mathematics, etc.

Humanoid robot

A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other purposes. In general, humanoid robots have a torso, a head, two arms, and two legs, though some humanoid robots may replicate only part of the body, for example, from the waist up. Some humanoid robots also have heads designed to replicate human facial features such as eyes and mouths.

Bio-inspired robotics

Bio-inspired robotic locomotion is a fairly new subcategory of bio-inspired design. It is about learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design of real-world engineered systems. More specifically, this field is about making robots that are inspired by biological systems, including Biomimicry. Biomimicry is copying from nature while bio-inspired design is learning from nature and making a mechanism that is simpler and more effective than the system observed in nature.

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Extra Robotic Limbs