Electronic-skin systems for robotics and healthcare
The talk will introduce artificial skin systems based on piezoelectric polymeric materials. Basic features of PVDF and P(VDF-TrFE) and of the dedicated interface electronic circuit solutions will be highligthed. Distributed pressure sensing systems based on arrays of piezoelectric polymeric transducers and two examples of applications in robotics and healthcare will be detailed.
Skin-inspired stretchable electronics and adjustable soft structures for damping
The human skin not only is the largest human organ, it also serves as large area sensor and as protective layer. Inspired by the ingenious design of the skin stretchable sensors and electronic circuits have been developed. Tackling the interfacing issues of soft-to-rigid-active material interfaces, silicones and novel silicone composites with a gradient in stiffness were developed. In addition, skin-inspired damping structures were investigated for adjusting their stiffness/damping properties. Combining these two approaches we aim at creating soft skinlike damping sturctures with sensing cababilities.
Active Visuo-Tactile Interactive Perception and Deep Cross-Modal Learning for Object Grasp and Manipulation in Robotics
For robots to execute tasks in unstructured environments, visuo-tactile plays a key role. The vision-based technologies have become essential for an effective analysis of the scene, path planning, and observing the behavior of humans in the robot workspace. However, vision alone is often not enough to achieve sufficient perception capabilities of robotic systems in unstructured environments, due to variable light conditions, occlusions in cluttered scenes, and a requirement for contact information between robot and environment. Tactile perception is of fundamental importance for robots that physically interact with the external environment. Wisely leveraging tactile information provides robots with enhanced perceptive capabilities. For these reasons, interactive tactile perception is becoming important research directions to support visual perception. Even though tactile and visual perception has gained a great deal of interest, the field of active visuo-tactile interactive perception and cross-modal learning have not been profusely explored in robotics. A robotic system with active visuo-tactile perception and cross-modal learning capability can leverage apriori knowledge acquired with one modality and efficiently use it with other at execution time. In this talk, I will present our recent developed full-fledged active visuo-tactile perception and deep-cross modal learning framework for the robotics systems to efficiently localize cluttered objects in an unknow workspace and to recognize objects, previously inspected with one modality like vision, via tactile modality.
Tactomorphics for Prosthethics
Prostheses improved in their motor performance with the development of dexterous multifinger manipulators. However, most modern prosthesis lack the sense of touch and how that information is relayed back to the amputees is even less understood and developed. Tactomorphics utilizes design of tactile sensors that mimic the receptors in the skin and encodes the information by modeling the receptors in the skin using the spiking neural code. Once this neural code is implemented, algorithms are developed to address conditions encountered in palpation. This talk will present the model, neuromorphic encoding, and then how primitives of palpation, edge, shape, texture, and functions of slip and grasp can be implemented. For feedback, we will explore two options, vibration and electrocutaneous stimulation. Computational modeling results and experimental results with able-bodied and amputees will be presented. Further work would involve developing machine learning methods (preferably embedded) and feedback techniques (preferably noninvasive) for enhancing touch perception.
Coupling living and artificial neurons beyond conventional neuromorphic devices
The interface between biological cells and non-biological materials has profound influences on cellular activities, chronic tissue responses, and ultimately the success of medical implants and bioelectronic devices. The optimal coupling between cells, i.e. neurons, and materials is mainly based on surface interaction, electrical communication and sensing. In the last years, many efforts have been devoted to the engineering of materials to recapitulate both the environment (i.e. dimensionality, curvature, dynamicity) and the functionalities (i.e. long and short term plasticity) of the neuronal tissue to ensure a better integration of the bioelectronic platform and cells. On the one hand, here we explore how the transition from planar to pseudo-3D nanopatterned inorganic and organic materials have introduced a new strategy of integrating bioelectronic platforms with biological cells under static and dynamic conditions. On the other hand, we investigate how organic semiconductors can be exploited for recapitulating electrical neuronal functions such as long term and short term potentiation. In this way, both the topology and the material functionalities can be exploited for achieving in vitro biohybrid platforms for neuronal network interfacing.
Somatosensory Neuroprostheses for Sensing with Bionic Limbs
In the recent past, several research groups are studying the fascinating and futuristic research of connecting the human nervous system with bionic limbs. Striving to close the gap between humans and machines, this research is now working to create prosthetic limbs that utilize the direct neural stimulation of the nervous system to restore sensory-motor functions lost after an injury or a disease. Decades of technological developments have populated the field of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) and neuroprosthetics with several replacement strategies, neural modulation treatments, and rehabilitation strategies to improve the patients’ quality of life. The neuroprostheses are implantable devices designed to replace or improve the function of a disabled part of the nervous system. The different approaches for the restoration of sensory functions through neuroprostheses based on electrical neurostimulation will be presented. This field is now quickly expanding thanks to advances in neural interfaces, machine learning techniques, and robotics. In the next future, the neurotechnologies will continue to grow thanks also to faster and more advanced computer simulations allowing to test and validate these technologies even faster. The transformation of neurotechnologies blurs the boundaries between human and machine.
Multisensory Cognitive and Perceptual Integration with Advanced Bionics
Prosthetic interventions are showing increasing levels of sophistication and autonomy. As the complexity of advanced systems continues to grow so does the complexity of human-machine relationships. Natural bi-directional communication between bionics and their users is essential to provide seamless integrated control, a cognitive sense of ownership for the physical device, and a cognitive sense of agency for its actions. This talk will cover many facets of neurorobotic control and feedback, innate behavioral strategies, systems-level adaptation to sensory restoration, and embodied cognition for prosthetic limbs. Neurorobotics and human-machine interactions are beginning to provide insight into understanding the complexities of how humans interact with their own intrinsic embodied cooperative systems and the brain circuitry that underlies the cognitive sense of self.
Interacting with the unknown: the soft sensing way
A variety of tasks and behaviors result from a manipulator interacting with an unknown environment. Sensorization is required for an artificial system to gather tactile data and make autonomous decisions, with many examples concerning resistive, inductive, and capacitive sensors. Embeddable sensors must be compliant with the environment and conformable with the agent. Optical sensors are appealing because of their wide sensitivity range, reliability, and resistance to EMI. These characteristics can be exploited to cover wide regions with distributed sensors instead of integrating several sensors into arrays. However, the tactile reconstruction becomes trickier when a direct correspondence between electronic components and taxels is missing. Indeed, in complex soft systems, e.g., manipulators, etc., the computational effort should be balanced between the processing (brain) and the morphology (body). Morphological computation highlights the significance of the body's passive adaptability. The main challenge in limiting the robot complexity is understanding the trade-off between morphology working parallel to the control or being functional.
New emerging concepts in biological touch and haptics neuroscience
In studies of biological touch sensing, and in engineered haptics systems taking inspiration from biology, it is often implicitly assumed that each skin sensor is activated independently of others. An implied consequence is that our skin as a sensing organ can be understood as a set of ‘taxels’, tactile pixels where each independent sensor have a specific tuning and that is all there is to know. Here, I review evidence that biological touch sensing instead rely on complex distributed mechanical couplings across the skin, causing the activation of large numbers of skin sensors. And because of the mechanical couplings, the activation pattern of each sensor has a dependency, or a specific relationship, to those of other sensors. This provides for extremely rich, high-dimensional information being generated in the nervous system whenever a haptic interaction is made. Recent neurophysiological data support this as the organizational principle for brain processing of haptic information. Further studies of the representations in the neocortex of haptic information implies a revision of how we view the neocortical circuitry function, with profound discrepancies to today’s dominating architectures of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN/DNN).
Jamie's Medley
SESSION 1: Social Media for researchers
Getting your work on social media may be easy - but making it popular is more challenging. This workshop takes you through the main social media channels and looks at how to create share-worthy content messages. Discover how to use social media to foster meaningful interactions and share your work with as many people as possible. Form tweets to live streams this interactive session is packed with ideas of how to maximise your use of social media as a researcher
SESSION 2: Beyond the lab
Researchers need to have a diverse skillset, from the ability to manage long and complex project to being able to form collaborations outside your field. This workshop will guide you through some of the most useful and important skills to have at your disposal. We will explore everything from efficient working through to impact beyond the academic.
