Using a humanoid robot to understand and repair sensorimotor control

描述（由申请人提供）：我们要求资金购买国家的最先进的机器人手臂和手从影子机器人。该装置由48块空气肌肉驱动，其顺应性和力-长度特性与人体肌肉相似。此外，运动学结构和运动范围与人类上肢相似。机器人将允许我们实现和测试感觉运动控制模型。这些模型传统上是基于简单实验任务的数据，它们是否可以扩展到大脑在日常生活中解决的具有挑战性的控制问题仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。解决这个问题的唯一方法是尝试以我们认为大脑控制身体的方式控制人形机器人，看看我们目前的想法失败了，并找到改进的方法。此外，该机器人将促进神经假肢控制新技术的研究，特别是控制人们知之甚少的复杂手部运动。该机器人还将用于闭环脑机接口的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We request funds to purchase a state-of-the-art robotic arm and hand from Shadow Robot. The device is actuated by 48 air muscles whose compliance and force-length characteristics are similar to human muscles. Furthermore the kinematic structure and range of motion are similar to the human upper limb. The robot will allow us to implement and test models of sensorimotor control. Such models are traditionally based on data from simple experimental tasks, and whether they can scale to the challenging control problems which the brain solves in everyday life remains an open question. The only way to address this question is to try to control a humanoid robot in the way we think the brain controls the body, see where our current ideas fail, and find ways to improve them. In addition the robot will facilitate research in novel technologies for neuro-prosthetic control, especially control of complex hand movements which are poorly understood. The robot will also be used in research on closed-loop brain-machine interfaces.