Related papers: Muscle coactivation primes the nervous system for …
When moving a piano or dancing tango with a partner, how should I control my arm muscles to best feel their movements and follow or guide them smoothly? Here we observe how physically connected pairs tracking a moving target with the arm…
Stylized models of the neurodynamics that underpin sensory motor control in animals are proposed and studied. The voluntary motions of animals are typically initiated by high level intentions created in the primary cortex through a…
Humans activate muscles to shape the mechanical interaction with their environment, but can they harness this control mechanism to best sense the environment? We investigated how participants adapt their muscle activation to visual and…
Voluntary human motion is the product of muscle activity that results from upstream motion planning of the motor cortical areas. We show that muscle activity can be artificially generated based on motion features such as position, velocity,…
The musculoskeletal humanoid can move well under environmental contact thanks to its body softness. However, there are few studies that actively make use of the environment to rest its flexible musculoskeletal body. Also, its complex…
The human body is a complex organism whose gross mechanical properties are enabled by an interconnected musculoskeletal network controlled by the nervous system. The nature of musculoskeletal interconnection facilitates stability, voluntary…
Passive mechanical response of skeletal muscles at fast time scales is dominated by long range interactions inducing cooperative behavior without breaking the detailed balance. This leads to such unusual "material properties" as negative…
Accidentology or shock biomechanics are research domains mainly devoted to the development of safety conditions for the users of various transport modes in case of an accident. The objective of this study was to improve the knowledge of the…
Humans are able to outperform robots in terms of robustness, versatility, and learning of new tasks in a wide variety of movements. We hypothesize that highly nonlinear muscle dynamics play a large role in providing inherent stability,…
Robust control of complex engineered and biological systems hinges on the integration of feedforward and feedback mechanisms. This is exemplified in neural motor control, where feedforward muscle co-contraction complements sensory-driven…
Animals achieve robust locomotion by offloading regulation from the brain to physical couplings within the body. In contrast, locomotion in artificial systems often depends on centralized processors. We introduce a rapid and autonomous…
The work presented in this report introduces a framework aimed towards learning to imitate human gaits. Humans exhibit movements like walking, running, and jumping in the most efficient manner, which served as the source of motivation for…
Human locomotion emerges from high-dimensional neuromuscular control, making predictive musculoskeletal simulation challenging. We present a physiology-informed reinforcement-learning framework that constrains control using muscle…
Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) is a technique to evoke muscle contraction through low-energy electrical signals. FES can animate paralysed limbs. Yet, an open challenge remains on how to apply FES to achieve desired movements. This…
We introduce a novel musculoskeletal model of a dog, procedurally generated from accurate 3D muscle meshes. Accompanying this model is a motion capture-based locomotion task compatible with a variety of control algorithms, as well as an…
Active sensing is traditionally defined as the expenditure of energy, typically in the form of movement, for obtaining information. Here, we propose that the combination of reliance on adaptive sensors, the linkage between movement and…
The human somatosensory cortex is intimately linked to other central brain functions such as vision, audition, mechanoreception, and motor planning and control. These links are established through brain learning, and display a considerable…
Passive elastic elements can contribute to stability, energetic efficiency, and impact absorption in both biological and robotic systems. They also add dynamical complexity which makes them more challenging to model and control. The impact…
Human interaction involves very sophisticated non-verbal communication skills like understanding the goals and actions of others and coordinating our own actions accordingly. Neuroscience refers to this mechanism as motor resonance, in the…
The hand, a complex effector comprising dozens of degrees of freedom of movement, endows us with the ability to flexibly, precisely, and effortlessly interact with objects. The neural signals associated with dexterous hand movements in…