Cooperative Adaptation and Shaping of Human Motor Control through Unstable Physical Human-Robot Interactions

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The research objective of this project is to establish a learning, modeling and tuning framework of human motor control through unstable physical human-robot interactions (upHRI). Rider-bikebot interactions will be used as an upHRI paradigm to examine a sensorimotor theory for modeling and shaping human motor control relevant to balancing and other functional whole-body motor activities. Bikebot is an actively controlled bicycle-based robot. By perturbing rider's sensorimotor mechanism through controlled steering, velocity, and balancing, bikebot offer a new platform for studying physical human-robot interactions. This project will develop new learning, modeling and control schemes for human motor strategies through rider-bikebot interactions, including (1) the development of the in-situ sensing and actuation design to enable perturbing, extracting and evaluation of human motor skills in upHRI; (2) the novel control-theoretic physical/statistical modeling framework of extracting and characterizing human motor control strategies on reduced-dimensionality embedding manifolds; and (3) the control methodologies to cooperatively adapt and tune the human motor strategies in upHRI. The new knowledge and tools developed in this project will serve as a cornerstone to further advance understanding of general physical HRI and to design new human-inspired control and coordination with other complex robotic systems.If successful, the research outcomes of this project will generate new knowledge, methodologies and enabling tools for designing a broader class of human-in-the-loop control systems. A direct outcome of the proposed research will potentially lead to develop a new bikebot-assisted diagnosis and rehabilitation tool for neurological disorder patients. In a long term, the outcomes of this project will provide potential approaches to engineer the tools for biological discovery. The PIs will distribute systems schematics and design, source code, experimental data, and documentation via the project website so that other groups can learn from this project's outcomes. The PIs will also develop a number of integrated research and education programs to attract students from underrepresented groups into engineering and involve undergraduate students into research.