Role of Nonuniformly Quantized Actuation in Biological Motion Generation

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The goal of this award is to establish a physiologically inspired framework for recruiting compliant modular actuators for biological movement generation. The research will result in an in-depth understanding of how modularity and variability in the neuromuscular system play key roles in coordinating multiple muscles. The research studies a non-uniform recruitment method for compliant actuator arrays. Floating point quantization (FPQ), a popular numbering scheme in digital communications, appeared as a viable option which mimics aspects of Henneman's size principle of motor unit recruitment. The research hypothesizes that (1) variability in muscle forces and signal-dependency can be characterized by quantized actuation profiles in non-uniform modular actuator system, (2) a quantized actuator recruitment approach reproduces such signal-dependent variability without introducing an artificial source of noise into robotic architecture, and (3) optimization principles in muscle coordination can be modeled mathematically by mapping the variability at the level of individual muscles to the variability at an end-point from a stochastic control perspective. Quantized control methods for recruiting muscle-type robotic actuators for biological trajectory generation will be developed, and resultant motor performance in artificial robotic limbs will be compared to performance in humans.If successful, the research will advance the field of biologically inspired robotics, rehabilitation robotics, computational neuroscience, and character animation. A deeper understanding of neuromuscular physiology will provide more sophisticated computational models, resulting in a novel architecture for robotics that captures the advantages inherent in biological motor systems. Research outcomes will be integrated into current courses including offering a special topic for undergraduate design research. Graduate and undergraduate students will be recruited from interdisciplinary and multicultural groups including under-represented groups. Outreach activities for K-12 students will be conducted through a Robotics Summer Camp program, Georgia Tech the Student and Teacher Enhancement Partnership Program, and FIRST Robotics.