GRASP Seminar Series: Spring 2006

February 3, 12:00 p.m., Wu & Chen Auditorium

Yoky Matsuoka
Carnegie Mellon University

"Neurobiotics: An interdisciplinary approach to understanding and assisting humans"

Abstract: Neurobotics is a new field that lies at the intersection of Robotics and Neuroscience. Neurobotics is currently a small community but is growing rapidly in both engineering and science. In the Neurobotics Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, robotic models and environments are used to understand the biomechanics and neuromuscular control of human limbs. In parallel, robotic systems are developed to augment, replace and rehabilitate damaged sensorimotor functions. In this talk, an overview of the Neurobotics Lab is presented and two example projects are addressed in more detail. First, the Anatomically Correct Testbed (ACT) Hand, a prototype of a seamlessly integrated prosthetic hand, is introduced. A description of how the ACT Hand is used to understand the neural control strategy of the high-degree-of-freedom redundant human hand will follow. As a second example, a robotic rehabilitation environment with distorted feedback is presented. To enrich this therapeutic environment, a patient’s adaptation and other neuromuscular states are monitored using a dynamic system identification technique, and a safe whole-body interaction environment is constructed. Finally, there will be a brief description of the Neurobotics Lab outreach and educational programs for minority and disabled students.

Biography: Professor Yoky Matsuoka is an Anna Loomis McCandless Assistant Professor in the Robotics Institute, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. She is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her Ph.D. at MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Computational Neuroscience in 1998. She received an M.S. from MIT in 1995 and a B.S. from UC Berkeley in 1993, both in EECS. Prior to joining CMU, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT and in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University. Her work at CMU earned a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2004, Anna Loomis McCandless Chair in 2004, and IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award in 2005.


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