Publications related to Enhancing our understanding of human fine manipulation skills and advancing robot dexterity in grasping

Related publications (34)

Effect of Extrinsic Reward on Motor Plasticity during Skill Learning

Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis

Human motor skill acquisition is improved by performance feedback, and coupling such feedback with extrinsic reward (such as money) can enhance skill learning. However, the neurophysiology underlying such behavioral effect is unclear. To bridge this gap, w ...

2025

Principles and Guidelines for Evaluating Social RobotNavigation Algorithms

Alexandre Massoud Alahi

A major challenge to deploying robots widely is navigation in human-populated environments, commonly referred to as social robot navigation. While the field of social navigation has advanced tremendously in recent years, the fair evaluation of algorithms t ...

ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY2025

Reward signals in the motor cortex: from biology to neurotechnology

Solaiman Shokur, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis

Over the past decade, research has shown that the primary motor cortex (M1), the brain's main output for movement, also responds to rewards. These reward signals may shape motor output in its final stages, influencing movement invigoration and motor learni ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2025

An augmented reality-based wearable system for handheld-free and intuitive robot programming

Junsoo Kim

Industrial robots have been programmed to optimize mass production by executing predefined trajectories with their high speed, precision, and repeatability over long production cycles. However, the rise of Industry 4.0 and the increasing demand for diverse ...

2025

GRADE: Generating Realistic and Dynamic Environments for robotics research with Isaac Sim

Chenghao Xu

Photorealistic synthetic data and novel rendering techniques significantly advanced computer vision research. However, datasets focused on computer vision applications cannot be easily applied to robotics because they typically lack physics-related informa ...

SAGE Publications2025

Hitting with Different Joints of a Robotic Manipulator

Aude Billard, Harshit Khurana

This paper builds up the skill of impact aware non prehensile manipulation through a hitting motion by allowing the robot arm to come in contact with the environment with parts other than its end effector. Hitting with other joints allows us to manipulate ...

2024

Soft Robot Shape Estimation With IMUs Leveraging PCC Kinematics for Drift Filtering

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Francesco Stella

The control possibilities for soft robots have long been hindered by the need for reliable methods to estimate their configuration. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) can solve this challenge, but they are affected by well-known drift issues. This letter pr ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

Organ Neuroprosthetics: Connecting Transplanted and Artificial Organs with the Nervous System

Silvestro Micera

Implantable neural interfaces with the central and peripheral nervous systems are currently used to restore sensory, motor, and cognitive functions in disabled people with very promising results. They have also been used to modulate autonomic activities to ...

Wiley2024

Gas Sensing with Rotary-Wing Nano Aerial Vehicles

Chiara Ercolani

Harmful chemical compounds are released daily in warehouses, chemical plants and during environmental emergencies. Their uncontrolled dispersion contributes to the pollution of the atmosphere and threatens human and animal lives. When gas leaks occur, the ...

EPFL2024

Memento Mori: Reliable robustness in self-reconfigurable modular robots

Kevin Andrew Holdcroft

Modular robotics link the reliability of a centralised system with the adaptivity of a decentralised system. It is difficult for a robot with a fixed shape to be able to perform many different types of tasks. As the task space grows, the number of functi ...

EPFL2024

Quantifying the biomimicry gap in biohybrid robot-fish pairs

Francesco Mondada, Vaios Papaspyros

Biohybrid systems in which robotic lures interact with animals have become compelling tools for probing and identifying the mechanisms underlying collective animal behavior. One key challenge lies in the transfer of social interaction models from simulatio ...

2024

Augmenting locomotor perception by remapping tactile foot sensation to the back

Nathanaël Yvon Ferraroli-Tissot-Daguette, Olaf Blanke, Mohamed Bouri, Oliver Alan Kannape, Atena Fadaeijouybari, Selim Jean Habiby Alaoui

Background :Sensory reafferents are crucial to correct our posture and movements, both reflexively and in a cognitively driven manner. They are also integral to developing and maintaining a sense of agency for our actions. In cases of compromised reafferen ...

BioMed Central2024

Non-invasive stimulation of the human striatum disrupts reinforcement learning of motor skills

Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, Takuya Morishita, Maximilian Jonas Wessel, Elena Beanato, Traian Popa, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis, Fabienne Windel, Esra Neufeld

Reinforcement feedback can improve motor learning, but the underlying brain mechanisms remain underexplored. In particular, the causal contribution of specific patterns of oscillatory activity within the human striatum is unknown. To address this question, ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Soft Robotics: A Route to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity in Robotics

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes

Robotics is entering our daily lives. The discipline is increasingly crucial in fields such as agriculture, medicine, and rescue operations, impacting our food, health, and planet. At the same time, it is becoming evident that robotic research must embrace ...

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc2024

A Biohybrid Superorganism - Investigating honeybees' collective behaviors via interactive robotics

Rafael Botner Barmak

Social insects, such as ants, termites, and honeybees, have evolved sophisticated societies where the collaborative efforts of "simple" individuals can lead to the emergence of complex dynamics. The reliance of each organism on the collective is so great t ...

EPFL2024

Online Multicontact Receding Horizon Planning via Value Function Approximation

Sylvain Calinon, Teguh Santoso Lembono

Planning multicontact motions in a receding horizon fashion requires a value function to guide the planning with respect to the future, e.g., building momentum to traverse large obstacles. Traditionally, the value function is approximated by computing traj ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

Avoidance of Concave Obstacles Through Rotation of Nonlinear Dynamics

Aude Billard, Lukas Huber

Controlling complex tasks in robotic systems, such as circular motion for cleaning or following curvy lines, can be dealt with using nonlinear vector fields. This article introduces a novel approach called the rotational obstacle avoidance method (ROAM) fo ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

Investigating neural resource allocation in the sensorimotor control of extra limbs

Giulia Dominijanni

The rise of robotic body augmentation brings forth new developments that will transform robotics, human-machine interaction, and wearable electronics. Extra robotic limbs, although building upon restorative technologies, bring their own set of challenges i ...

EPFL2024

An objective skill assessment framework for microsurgical anastomosis based on ALI scores

Aude Billard, Kunpeng Yao, Soheil Gholami

IntroductionThe current assessment and standardization of microsurgical skills are subjective, posing challenges in reliable skill evaluation. We aim to address these limitations by developing a quantitative and objective framework for accurately assessing ...

Springer Wien2024

Soft robotics for farm to fork: applications in agriculture & farming

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge

Agricultural tasks and environments range from harsh field conditions with semi-structured produce or animals, through to post-processing tasks in food-processing environments. From farm to fork, the development and application of soft robotics offers a pl ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024