Description:

Title: Motion Planning and Control for Robot and Human Manipulation

Speaker: Kevin Lynch, Northwestern University

Abstract:

In this talk I will provide a brief overview of robotics research in the Neuroscience and Robotics Lab, a collaboration between the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, as well as the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  In the main part of the talk, I will describe our progress on motion planning and control for two very different manipulation problems:  (1) nonprehensile manipulation by robots and (2) control of neuroprosthetics for humans with spinal cord injuries.

The first part of the talk will focus on graspless manipulation modes commonly used by humans and animals but mostly avoided by robots, such as rolling, pushing, pivoting, tapping, and throwing and catching.  These manipulation modes exploit dynamics to create object motions that would otherwise be impossible.  I will focus particularly on the development of a programmable motion surface to manipulate multiple parts simultaneously.

In the second part of the talk I will describe a recent project on control of a functional electrical stimulation neuroprosthetic for the human arm.  The goal of the project is to allow people with high spinal cord injury to recover the use of their arms for activities of daily living.  Beginning with traditional methods for system identification and control of robot arms, I will describe how we have extended the approach to identification and control of an electrically stimulated human arm.

Bio:

Kevin Lynch is Professor and Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Northwestern University.  He is a member of the Neuroscience and Robotics Lab (nxr.northwestern.edu) and former codirector of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (nico.northwestern.edu).  His research focuses on dynamics, motion planning, and control for robot manipulation and locomotion; self-organizing multi-agent systems; and functional electrical stimulation for restoration of human function.  

Dr. Lynch is a Senior Editor of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, co-author of The Principles of Robot Motion (MIT Press, 2005), an IEEE fellow, and the recipient of the IEEE Early Career Award in Robotics and Automation, Northwestern's Professorship of Teaching Excellence, and the Northwestern Teacher of the Year award in engineering.  He earned a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

Host: Mel Ulmer

Speaker Schedule

Keywords: Physics, Astronomy, colloquium