Dr. Panagiotis Artemiadis
Mechanical Engineering Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Friday, February 4, 2011
10:30am
ERC 490
Abstract
At the interface of neuroscience and robotics, neuro‐robotics is a rapidly developing field, which involves the
science and technology of embodied autonomous neural systems. In this talk I will focus on robots that can
be controlled by using signals coming from the Central and Peripheral human Nervous System. I will also
present methods for using robots in order to retrain the human Nervous System, in cases of mobility
impairments. The first part of this talk focuses on control methodologies for neuro‐robotic devices based on
recorded nervous signals corresponding to human upper limb motions. A 7‐DoF anthropomorphic robot arm
is remotely operated in realtime by using human arm motion decoded by the electromyogram recorded
from muscles of the upper limb. Furthermore, an adaptive mechanism that can compensate for the time variation
of EMG signal features (mainly caused by muscle fatigue) is used to decode arm motion for long
periods of time. Finally, cortical signals from primates are used to control a multi‐fingered robot hand in
reaching and grasping tasks. The second part of this talk focuses on the MIT‐Skywalker, a novel robotic
device for gait rehabilitation. In contrast to previous approaches in mechanized gait therapy, the
MITSkywalker does not impose rigid kinematics pattern of normal gait on impaired walkers. It takes
advantage of the concept of passive walkers and the natural dynamics of the lower extremity instead, in
order to deliver more “ecological“ therapy.
Biosketch
Dr. Panagiotis Artemiadis is currently a Post Doctoral Associate in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the PhD degree in Mechanical
Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, in 2009. His research interests
include robotics, brain‐machine interfaces, rehabilitation robotics, prosthetics, orthotics, human‐robot
physical interaction and control. He has authored or coauthored more than 20 papers published in
peer reviewed journals and presented at refereed conferences. Two of his research papers were included in
the top three (3) papers in IEEE international peer reviewed conferences in 2007 and 2008, while he received
the Second Best Paper Award in the IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Bioengineering in
2008. He has been appointed as Associate Editor at the IEEE Editorial Board of the Robotics and Automation
Society since 2009.
