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Motor control is a fundamental process that underlies all voluntary behavioral responses. Several different theories based on different principles (task dynamics, equilibrium-point theory, passive-motion paradigm, active inference, optimal…

This paper contributes a preliminary report on the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating simultaneous human control and feedback signals in the training of a reinforcement learning robotic agent. While robotic human-machine…

When a human performs a given specific task, it has been known that the central nervous system controls modularized muscle group, which is called muscle synergy. For human-robot interface design problem, therefore, the muscle synergy can be…

Humanoid robots may require a degree of compliance at the joint level for improving efficiency, shock tolerance, and safe interaction with humans. The presence of joint elasticity, however, complexifies the design of balancing and walking…

Animals use limbs for both locomotion and manipulation. We aim to equip quadruped robots with similar versatility. This work introduces a system that enables quadruped robots to interact with objects using their legs, inspired by…

Soft robotics technologies have gained growing interest in recent years, which allows various applications from manufacturing to human-robot interaction. Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM), a typical soft actuator, has been widely applied to…

Understanding how cortical activity represents natural whole-body behaviors in primates remains challenging. Limited by the diversity of movements and inaccessibility of large-scale neural representation of whole-body kinematics, previous…

As people learn to navigate the world, autonomic nervous system (e.g., "fight or flight") responses provide intrinsic feedback about the potential consequence of action choices (e.g., becoming nervous when close to a cliff edge or driving…

Contemporary sensorimotor learning approaches typically start with an existing complex agent (e.g., a robotic arm), which they learn to control. In contrast, this paper investigates a modular co-evolution strategy: a collection of primitive…

In this article, a biophysically realistic model of a soft octopus arm with internal musculature is presented. The modeling is motivated by experimental observations of sensorimotor control where an arm localizes and reaches a target. Major…

Feedback is a most important concept in control systems, its main purpose is to deal with internal and/or external uncertainties in dynamical systems, by using the on-line observed information. Thus, a fundamental problem in control theory…

The neural networks of the brain are capable of learning statistical input regularities on the basis of synaptic learning, functional integration into increasingly larger, interconnected neural assemblies, and self organization. This self…

Humans possess a remarkable ability to react to unpredictable perturbations through immediate mechanical responses, which harness the visco-elastic properties of muscles to maintain balance. Inspired by this behaviour, we propose a novel…

Synchronization of activity among myocytes constituting vital organs, e.g., the heart, is crucial for physiological functions. Self-organized coordination in such heterogeneous ensemble of excitable and oscillatory cells is therefore of…

The human shoulder, with its glenohumeral joint, tendons, ligaments, and muscles, allows for the execution of complex tasks with precision and efficiency. However, current robotic shoulder designs lack the compliance and compactness…

The ability to flexibly leverage limbs for loco-manipulation is essential for enabling autonomous robots to operate in unstructured environments. Yet, prior work on loco-manipulation is often constrained to specific tasks or predetermined…

Real-time collaboration with humans poses challenges due to the different behavior patterns of humans resulting from diverse physical constraints. Existing works typically focus on learning safety constraints for collaboration, or how to…

The tendon-driven musculoskeletal humanoid has many benefits that human beings have, but the modeling of its complex muscle and bone structures is difficult and conventional model-based controls cannot realize intended movements. Therefore,…

Designing artificial cyber-agents able to interact with human safely, smartly and in a natural way is a current open problem in control. Solving such an issue will allow the design of cyber-agents capable of co-operatively interacting with…

Although robots with flexible bodies are superior in terms of the contact and adaptability, it is difficult to control them precisely. On the other hand, human beings make use of the surrounding environments to stabilize their bodies and…