MUlti-limb Virtual Environment (MUVE) for full body and augmented interactions

多肢体虚拟环境(MUVE)是帝国理工学院人机界面实验室的首个此类系统，可以研究人类自然肢体与机械肢体的相互作用。当MUVE产生物理、视觉、听觉和触觉交互时，人类用户可以(物理地或虚拟地)佩戴机械臂和/或在其上进行外部作用。为此，MUVE结合了(I)目前可用的最先进的基于跑步机的虚拟现实运动套件，(Ii)两个机器人接口来与手臂顺利交互，(Iii)多达四个可穿戴的机械臂用于运动增强，以及(Iv)来自人机接口实验室的专用感应器接口，包括仪器对象、软测量和外骨骼、先进的假肢、高密度肌电和非侵入性神经接口。这一高度通用的系统可用于训练将运动与上半身和手臂运动相结合的任务，用于物理康复、运动或制造和现场工作中的维护。它可以通过额外的可穿戴机械臂(又名八达通博士)实现运动增强，以开发从机器人手术(带有控制附加工具的机械臂)到单独工作(在偏远位置/受限环境中)的各种新应用。它还可以用作汽车行业工人的主动外骨骼人体工学测试的开发系统，或用于支持健康老龄化。最后，它提供了通过物理互动开发新的虚拟现实方法的机会，例如向老年人提供帮助和与老年人进行社会互动，或为远程医疗应用体现虚拟患者。英国和全球的研究人员和公司都可以使用Muve系统。它位于帝国理工学院新的白城校区，位于人类技术研究和翻译的丰富生态系统中。MUVE将允许在物理康复、机器人手术、遥操作、人体工程学和通信技术的新型接口方面开发全新的应用。它还将使研究人员能够系统地研究中枢神经系统如何协调肢体进行高技能和运动恢复，以及它控制额外自由度的潜力--这些都是神经科学的基本问题。

The MUlti-limb Virtual Environment (MUVE) is a first-of-its-kind system housed in the Human Interface Laboratory of Imperial College that enables to study the interaction of human natural limbs with robotic limbs. The robotic limbs can be worn (physically or virtually) by the human user and/or can act externally on them while MUVE yields physical, visual, auditive, and haptic interactions. For this purpose, MUVE combines (i) the most advanced treadmill based virtual reality motion suite currently available, with (ii) two robotic interfaces to smoothly interact with the arms, (iii) up to four wearable robotic arms for movement augmentation, and (iv) dedicated sensorimotor interfaces from the Human Interface lab, including instrumented objects, soft sensors and exoskeletons, advanced prostheses, high-density EMG and non-invasive neural interfaces.This highly versatile system can be used to train tasks combining locomotion with upper-body and arm movements in physical rehabilitation, sport, or for maintenance in manufacturing and field work. It can embody movement augmentation through supernumerary wearable robotic arms (aka Dr. Octopus) for developing novel applications ranging from robotic surgery (with robotic limbs to control additional tools) to lone working (in remote locations/constrained environments). It can also be used as a development system for ergonomics testing of active exoskeletons for automotive industry workers or for supporting healthy ageing. Finally, it offers opportunities to develop new metaverse approaches with physical interaction, e.g. to provide assistance to and social interaction with elderly, or to embody virtual patients for telemedical applications. The MUVE system is accessible to researchers and companies in the UK and globally. It is housed in Imperial's new White City campus, within a rich ecosystem of research and translation in human technologies. MUVE will allow the development of fundamentally new applications in physical rehabilitation, robotic surgery, teleoperation, ergonomics, and novel interfaces for communication technology. It will also enable researchers to systematically investigate how the central nervous system coordinates the limbs for high skill and movement restoration, as well as its potential for controlling extra degrees-of-freedom - which are open fundamental neuroscientific questions.