Publications related to Toward higher-performance bionic limbs for wider clinical use

Investigating neural resource allocation in the sensorimotor control of extra limbs

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

Unraveling behavior and cortical signals to guide the development of soft neuroprostheses for auditory restoration and spreading depolarization

Emilie Cornelia Maria Revol

Neuroprostheses have been used clinically for decades, to help restore or preserve brain functions, when pharmaceutical treatments are inefficient. Although great progress in the field has been made over the years to interface with the nervous system, surf ...

EPFL2024

Modeling, fabrication and validation of 3D neural interfaces for peripheral nerves and brain organoids

Outman Akouissi

This thesis presents an extensive exploration of neuroelectronic interfaces, focusing on microfabrication, in silico modeling, and their applications in designing and fabricating devices for neural interfacing. The research encompasses both peripheral nerv ...

EPFL2024

Small-scale robotic devices for medical interventions in the brain

Lorenzo Francesco John Noseda, Mahmut Selman Sakar

This article summarizes the recent advancements in the design, fabrication, and control of microrobotic devices for the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders. With a focus on diverse actuation methods, we discuss how advancements in materials science ...

2024

33.3 MiBMI: A 192/512-Channel 2.46mm² Miniaturized Brain-Machine Interface Chipset Enabling 31-Class Brain-to-Text Conversion Through Distinctive Neural Codes

Gregor Rainer, Mahsa Shoaran, Amitabh Yadav, Uisub Shin, Mohammad Ali Shaeri

Recently, cutting-edge brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) have revealed the potential of decoders such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs) in predicting attempted handwriting [1] or speech [2], enabling rapid communication recovery after paralysis. However, c ...

IEEE2024

Biophysically accurate and machine learning-based surrogate models to optimize neuroprosthesis design and operation

Simone Romeni

Electrical stimulation of the nervous system has emerged as a promising assistive technology in case of many injuries and illnesses across various parts of the nervous system. In particular, the invasive neuromodulation of the peripheral nervous system see ...

EPFL2024

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

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

Driving and suppressing the human language network using large language models

Martin Schrimpf

Transformer models such as GPT generate human-like language and are predictive of human brain responses to language. Here, using functional-MRI-measured brain responses to 1,000 diverse sentences, we first show that a GPT-based encoding model can predict t ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Task-driven neural network models predict neural dynamics of proprioception: Neural network model weights

Axel Bisi, Alberto Silvio Chiappa, Alexander Mathis, Alessandro Marin Vargas

Proprioception tells the brain the state of the body based on distributed sensors in the body. However, the principles that govern proprioceptive processing from those distributed sensors are poorly understood. Here, we employ a task-driven neural network ...

Zenodo2024

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

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

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

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

Biohybrid Superorganisms—On the Design of a Robotic System for Thermal Interactions With Honeybee Colonies

Francesco Mondada, Robert Matthew Mills, Rafael Botner Barmak, Raphael Cherfan

Social insects, such as ants, termites, and honeybees, have evolved sophisticated societies where collaboration and division of labor enhance survival of the whole colony, and are thus considered “superorganisms”. Historically, studying behaviors involving ...

2024

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

Distributed Predictive Formation Control of Autonomous Rotary-Wing Micro Aerial Vehicles

Izzet Kagan Erünsal

This doctoral thesis navigates the complex landscape of motion coordination and formation control within teams of rotary-wing Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Prompted by the intricate demands of real-world applications such as search and rescue or surveillan ...

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

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

Sense in Motion with Belief Clustering: Efficient Gas Source Localization with Mobile Robots

Alcherio Martinoli, Wanting Jin

Given the patchy nature of gas plumes and the slow response of conventional gas sensors, the use of mobile robots for Gas Source Localization (GSL) tasks presents significant challenges. These aspects increase the difficulties in obtaining gas measurements ...

2024

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

Towards edible robots and robotic food

Dario Floreano, Jun Shintake, Bokeon Kwak, Markéta Pankhurst

Edible robots and robotic food — edible systems that perceive, process and act upon stimulation — could open a new range of opportunities in health care, environmental management and the promotion of healthier eating habits. For example, they could enable ...

2024