Getting Your Robot On: Wearable Machines' Intimate Interface
From: CITRIS Newsletter - 08/2009
By: Gordy Slack

Engineers around the world are exploring all kinds of possibilities for
wearable robot interfaces, from brain implants to touch interfaces. Professor
Jacob Rosen and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz's
Bionics Lab have devised a robotic arm guided by the electrical signals sent
by the brain through the nerves to contract the muscles. These signals can be
read by electrodes affixed to the skin in key locations above the muscles.
Rosen says robot device operation via electromyograph (EMG) signals is
advantageous for a number of reasons, including the fact that the method is
less invasive and less costly than other sources located closer to the brain.
In addition, EMG is a better alternative to simple touch interfaces because
it can yield new insights about muscle physiology and improve people's
ability to simulate and anticipate specific movements. "We are trying to
allow a loose-leash situation by developing software that employs algorithms
that emulate the muscle physiology, also known as a myoprocessor, to predict
what a muscle is going to do before it has begun to do it," Rosen says. He is
modeling the muscles to increase his wearable robots' responsiveness to human
intentions, and also is using the robots to help study how human motion
works, how it goes wrong, and the best way to fix such problems. Rosen says
medical applications, specifically rehabilitation, are his primary area of
concentration. Rosen's EXO-UL7 robot arm can substitute for a physical
therapist, permitting the remaining muscle control residing in a damaged arm
to move the whole limb plus a load by compensating for gravity. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.citris-uc.org/publications/newsletters/current_newsletter#article-6825

Links:
Jacob Rosen
http://bionics.soe.ucsc.edu/people/rosen/jacob_rosen.html

Wearable Robotics - Exoskeletons
http://bionics.soe.ucsc.edu/research/exoskeleton_index.html